If you’re in the process of making a career choice, you need to have a firm grip on your own abilities, preferences, and limitations. This is particularly true for recent college graduates, who are often preparing to enter career fields that are largely unknown to them. Fortunately, there are many sources of helpful information out there. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, maintains data about occupations, employment prospects, compensation, working conditions, and many other issues of interest to job-seekers. Information is available by industry, occupation, employer type, and region.

Exercise Task 

1. Access a summary of the Department of Labor’s National Compensation Survey at https://www.bls.gov/ncs/. (If the page has moved, search by the survey title.) Find detailed data related to the occupation that you regard as your most likely career choice when you graduate. Then locate detailed data about two other occupations that you might consider—one with a salary that’s higher than that of your number-one career choice and one with a salary that’s lower.  

2. Next, record the hourly salary data for each of your three choices, and then use the hourly salary to project an expected annual income. (Hint: Full-time jobs require about 2,000 hours annually.)

3. Based purely on salary information, which occupation would be “best” for you?  

4. Now go to www.bls.gov/oco and access job descriptions for various occupations. Review the description for each of the three career choices that you’ve already investigated. 

5. Based purely on job characteristics, which occupation would be “best” for you? 

6. Is there any conflict between your answers to questions 3 and 5? If so, how do you plan to resolve it? 

7. Are there any job characteristics that you desire strongly enough to sacrifice compensation in order to get them? What are they? What are the limits, if any, on your willingness to sacrifice pay for these job characteristics?