Got dreams? You better define them

Editor’s Note: April Forristall will graduate from the University of Maine in May and is writing a series of columns, appearing Wednesdays, about her and classmate’s job-hunting experiences.

Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to write. My mother still has stories, complete with illustrations, that I wrote as far back as the first grade. But my recent worries caused me to consider alternative careers.

An advertising class I took triggered an interest in marketing. My father, being completely supportive, began alerting me to marketing contacts, jobs, books to read and more.

Then, while visiting my parents in Alabama over winter break, we went to the Rosa Parks Museum. In it were original copies of newspapers that I studied in a class on the mass media. The papers all had taken a stand during the civil rights movement.

As I rattled off facts about the papers, pausing to read almost every word, my dad said to me that I seemed much too passionate about such things to abandon my dream of writing.

This brought me to a point from Richard Bolles’ book, “What Color Is My Parachute?” which has quickly become my survival guide. The first obstacle in your way during a job hunt is yourself.

You need to know what you want to do. Bolles writes, “Maybe you won’t be able to achieve your dream; but you’ll never know unless you first define what your dream is.”

For the first half of my life, I lived only on Air Force bases, and only went to schools located on those bases. As a result I only had friends who were also from military families.

Until I was about 10, I had no idea what on earth other people’s fathers did for jobs if they weren’t in the military.

So it was interesting to me to learn that there are at least 12,741 different careers or occupations out there, but they are described using a total of more than 20,000 different titles. They can all be found in the U.S. Dictionary of Occupational Titles, online at www.occupationlinfo.org.

For example, an alternative way for me to search for “reporter” positions, would be to search for “newsperson” positions.

One can search careers by skills, occupation, and occupation codes at http://online.onecenter.org.

If you are still having trouble figuring out what you want to do, there are always ways to measure what you’d be good at, like aptitude tests. If you grew up in the early ’90s, you’ve seen the episode of Saved By The Bell, where they do this. And if Zach Morris did it, it’s got to be cool.

There are both free and payment-required tests all over the web.

There are also tests that will measure your interests and match a job to them for you. For free, take the Princeton Review Career Quiz at www.princetonreview.com/cte/quiz/default/asp?menuID=0&careers=6.

Or you can play the Career Interests Game at www.career.missouri.edu/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=146.

Bolles recommends that after taking these types of tests, you go and talk to at least three people who are actually doing the job. Don’t just believe what the lists, test or experts try to claim is an ideal job for you. Make up your own mind.

In my opinion, this is great advice. A job you’re interested in could turn out to be not at all what you thought it was.

And quitting a job isn’t as simple as returning a bad purchase. You can’t tell them you got it home and changed your mind. I’m pretty sure it’s a little harder than that.