Investigating a career that you are interested in is a great way to find out more about what day to day life in a job is all about. It can often serve to be a real eye opener and can alert you to things that you may have never considered before, while it also allows you to make a more informed opinion on whether to pursue the career or not.

Some of the most important questions that you should to pay attention to are:

• What is the career like? 
• What would a typical day involve in this career? 
• What qualifications will I need to enter this career?
• What qualities and skills are required for this career? 
• Would this career suit me in terms of my interests, aptitudes, values etc?
  

Where to Start 

To find out more about what a particular career is like and discover the answers to the above questions, you can use our Career Explorer tool. There you will have access to information on over 1,000 different occupations that are available in Ireland. From each career page you will also find links to the various sectors associated to that career, explore relevant videos and career articles, find out about related careers and discover the variety of courses that you can study.

As part of your career investigation you may need to find alternative pathways into a particular career. This can be a very useful exercise as it should highlight to you that in the majority of cases there is more than one way to get there. This information can also be found in the Career Explorer, while other information such as location of the course; entry requirements; course length & qualification achieved can be found in the CourseFinder. 

Importance of Work Experience 

While reading from websites, books and databases can be informative and can help with a career investigation, there is nothing to compare with actual direct experience of a career. Work experience can have the effect of confirming a person’s interest in pursuing a career or giving a reality check to another by proving a career to be not what one might have thought. Either way, there is great potential value in participating in work experience and it should be treated with the importance that it merits. Very often work experience can be a young person’s first steps into the world of work and it offers a chance to begin building your own network. You have a chance to impress with your attitude and abilities. The impression you make on your boss or manager can help secure a favourable reference or a job and may also benefit you through word of mouth (people talk!) if you have shown yourself to be capable.

You are never too old to embark on work experience or a paid or unpaid internship. It may in fact be what you need to confirm your interest in a particular occupation or even be your stepping stone into your dream job!

Both the LCVP and LCA Career Investigations require you to undertake a work experience module and in some cases conduct a career interview.  For these pieces of work you are asked to provide direct evidence of any experience you gained from work experience, job shadowing, visiting an enterprise, interviewing a person in the career area, attending a college open day or careers exhibition related to the career.

Our WorkXperience Hub has much more information that may help you with this. 

Evaluating whether a career is a good match for you

While work experience and career investigations provide excellent insights into career areas, you may still not know whether you like the career or not. However, for the purpose of the Career Investigation report, you will be required to state whether you view the career as a good match for you or not. This is where undertaking some self-assessment will help and will allow students to discuss how the career fits in with their aptitudes, interests, personal values, school subject choices, personality and so on.

The free Careers Portal Interest Profiler and the other self-assessment apps included in the REACH+ (2^nd Level Users) and the MyFuture+ (Adult Users) Career Guidance Programmes will help generate your own personal information. This will then enable you to discuss how suitable the career might be for you and will allow you to elaborate on any positive or negative insights you gained from undertaking the whole career investigation experience.