Vanguard

Issue date: 10/15/07 Section: News

The University of South Alabama Career Services office is now making career counseling available online. They recently implemented a career advisory program called FOCUS. It incorporates career interests, personality traits and education to match the user with possible occupations.
For some people, it is hard to figure out what they want to do with their lives during or after college. FOCUS helps students explore aspects, ideas, interests, values, skills and other preferences to help them select a career choice.
It also helps to analyze career planning status, assess your interests, skills, work values, personality, discover and explore occupations, career paths and education programs, and it will map out your career and educational goals, action plans, personal development and training needs.
"What attracted us to it was because it's online. It's just like having a counselor at your fingertips," Nicole Shultz, a Career Services coordinator, said.
The FOCUS program offers tools to assess the users interests, work values and personal skills. The are seven assessments gauging aspects of the user's personality, education, interests, current and future skills, personal development and even leisure time preferences. The program is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
Usually, a personal account with the Web site costs $39.50. USA Career Services has bought into the program so that the service is free to all USA students. Students can gain access to the program by calling the Career Services office and asking to set up an account.
"The program is good quality and easy to use, but we still want them to come in to utilize our services here. But this way, we can reach out to more students," Schultz said.
The program was introduced this fall 2007 semester. Careers Services hopes it will help current students who may be struggling with choosing a concentration of study.
"It's another way students can explore their major, and it's another resource in case they want to change their major," Christine Edmiston, a Career Services coordinator, said.

When exploring a career, FOCUS gives the user statistics and expectations of a prospective occupation. It lists average salaries and starting salaries, schedule expectations, relocation possibilities, job duties, skills expected and work conditions for each job looked into.

Users can also keep a list of favorite careers and compare them at will. Some extra links and resources the Web site includes are a resume tutorial, a portfolio builder and USA's course bulletin. The resume tutorial will help students compile a resume in a professional manner.

It also contains a feature from http://monster.com called "Major-to-Career Converter," which helps the user find a matching occupation to his or her major. It also includes a link to a program called "Wet Feet Career Research" that helps anyone to gain job experience and skills.

"FOCUS let's you see it all at a glance," Schultz said.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools