Career Key

Author: Career Key's President and CEO, Juliet Wehr Jones, GCDF, J.D.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Best Internet Resources for Choosing Education Careers and Education Jobs

Whether to choose a career in education is a difficult but common decision. Many people are interested in education careers. After you match your personality with careers, narrowing your choices based on high-quality career information is critical to making a good career choice. But it takes work to find high-quality information on the Internet; so I've started it for you.

Having worked as an adjunct professor myself and raised by a college professor and a public school librarian, I know a little about education careers. With few exceptions, they are political, not well-paid, enjoy iffy job security, and often suffer from a lack of resources. All that said, with the right job fit, education is one of the most rewarding careers in the world. I feel fortunate to have grown up and worked in this environment.

Education is undergoing enormous change from technology, fluid government involvement, college “business models,” and demographics. A few examples of trends:
  • the growth in distance learning and Internet based education,
  • charter schools and changing public school system funding & structure,
  • accountability required by No Child Left Behind and state laws,
  • changes in the college professor tenure system, and
  • the growing diversity of the American student population.
So whether you are a high school career planner or an adult planning a career change, you need to more about what an education career is like before you leap. The resources I recommend are just a few to get you started, to show the variety of quality career information out there.

Before I recommend these career info links, don’t forget to:
  1. Talk with people working in the jobs that interest you – their information will be much more accurate, especially about your geographic region or specialty than any Internet source. Yes, it’s more work but it’s worth it. Learn more about career specific networking.
  2. Use your public or school/college library for free subscriptions or links to websites the general public has to pay for. See more tips for taking advantage of the library.
  3. Be skeptical of website sources of career information selling something – what is their bias? Where does their information come from? That includes The Career Key. You can learn more at our site about our mission and philosophy (we don’t accept reciprocal linking agreements or advertising).
To start, look at job descriptions, certification requirements, salary, job outlook, and related occupations and websites in the Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook:

Preschool and K-12 Teachers
Post-Secondary (College) Teachers
Education Administrators
Counselors
Librarians

Higher-Ed (college, post-secondary)
  • Chronicle.com (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
  • Chronicle also offers a great academic blog list focused on academic life and careers.
  • For a “real world” perspective on 2009 trends in technology and higher ed from a college IT VP, read this post from “Bytes from Lev
Secondary School (K-12)
Early Childhood Education & Preschool
Any suggestions and feedback on this post or any others is appreciated. This is my second post in a series about challenging but rewarding career choices, and finding the best Internet resources for career information. Click here for my first post about women interested in science careers.

1 comment:

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