This is a guest blog post by Sally Lawton.
Company: CareerVoyages.gov
Slogan: Good Jobs, Better Pay, Brighter Future
Pros: Detailed information, statistics
Cons: Dry content, out-dated data, unfocused
The government cares about your career, especially if you are interested in a high-paying, high-growth industry. CareerVoyages.gov (a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Education) points users in the direction of these industries by laying out specific career paths and providing hard numbers on hiring and salary.
According to CareerVoyages, among the high-growth and emerging industries that users should consider are advanced manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, construction, energy, financial services, healthcare, homeland security, hospitality, information technology, retail, transportation, biotechnology, geospatial technology, and nanotechnology. Clicking on each of the industry icons provides detailed overviews of each industry and how to get your career started. Users can also find comprehensive salary and hiring data. Unfortunately, there is a time lag for this data, causing information to be a few years out of date.
While CareerVoyages provides detailed, if dry, information on occupations within each industry, some industries no longer promise jobs. Being from Detroit, I’m a bit curious as to how CareerVoyages assumes that the automotive industry continues to grow. The subprime mess makes me doubt whether construction remains a wise career choice. Among the remaining industries, most will require some sort of advanced degree to make a high wage. Others, such as retail and hospitality, do not guarantee a better salary.
CareerVoyages also gives advice by industry according to where users are on their career path. Students, parents, career changers, and career advisers can access information on how to prepare for a given industry. Students are advised to take plenty of math and science courses, career changers are told to consider carefully what they might need to learn, and parents are told to encourage children to excel in math and science. Career advisers are told to follow the advice given to those in the other three categories. Despite the unique information listed above, the advice is nearly identical for each category.
While the information provided on CareerVoyages can be of value, there is almost too much for users to work with. There are countless external links, none of which really expand on the basic premise of the site. Special features turn out to be not so special. One quiz merely took me back to where I started, and discouraged me from being a writer. It’s apparently a low-growth industry.
If visitors use CareerVoyages for basic information, and don’t expect too many fancy features, they will be satisfied by the detailed content. If anything, a user will find answers to all their questions about a given industry. They will even get a specific path toward meeting their career goals. However, if users aren’t at all interested in math and science, or want the site to provide more personality/career matching, they might want to look elsewhere.
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