New online tool helps with career decisions

New online tool helps with career decisions

Career Services has launched a new, free online tool designed to help students and job seekers explore career ideas through an interactive questionnaire.

Called CareerQuest, this self-help career development tool has been available in schools in a CD-Rom format for many years, but is available online for the first time at www.careers.govt.nz/careerquest

Susan Kosmala, acting chief executive of Career Services, says the online version of the tool allows greater access so people of all ages can benefit.

“CareerQuest is ideal for students thinking about their future, as well as adults, who may be looking to head in a different direction or even confirm the career path they’re on is the right one. It aims to help you understand why certain jobs are suggested, and helps you get to the clearest result sooner.”

Kane Salanoa agrees. The 22-year-old sales and marketing manager has been one of the first people in the country to use the new online tool and he rates it highly.

“It’s a very user-friendly tool. It was really interesting to see the results at the end of the questionnaire and the fact a lot of my previous roles were in the top ten. It’s almost as if it had a mind of its own and knew me intimately.”

Mr Salanoa says it’s great to have a tool like CareerQuest that reinforces exactly where his passions and interests lie.

“I can see incredible benefit in this tool – for people of all ages.”

CareerQuest consists of 78 simple questions and should take no more than 10-15 minutes to complete. It asks job seekers about aspects of work they enjoy and then lists responses determined by their interests, rather than by their specific experience, knowledge or ability.

People can then view and filter results by industry type and education level. They can also see how each job matches their answers, with full job outlines then viewable on the site.

Once a person has finished the questionnaire they can save their results to a secure area called My Career Space, which they can come back to as they plan their career.

Mr Salanoa says he’s encouraged to see a government organisation like Career Services getting more involved in the digital space and making tools like CareerQuest more accessible to people.

“CareerQuest has a really nice flow about it – it sounds like it could be quite taxing with all those questions, but its really easy. I will certainly be recommending it to my friends.”

Visit Career Services’ web site www.careers.govt.nz or phone their advice line on 0800 222 733 to find out more.

ENDS

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