Once you have a good understanding of yourself and your career related needs, the next step in gaining control over your career is to understand your career options. Whether you've completed a formal career aptitude test, or you've just spent some quality time seriously thinking through possible career options, you will probably have a few career choices in mind at this point.

Your next step is to learn about those careers in depth and look for similar or related careers that could also be a good match for your needs. In your research, you should look for information on the major tasks involved in your careers of interest, the starting, median and top salaries earned in the fields and the qualifications required to get hired in your possible new careers. If you have any health issues to consider, look for information on the physical requirements of each job.

Try to get a sense of the way each potential career fits in with your local labor market. Will you be able to find a job locally, or will you need to commute or even move in order to realistically pursue each possible career? Also, it's wise to look for information on the typical career path of someone working in each career. What kind of work are people doing ten years into their career? Are there opportunities for growth and advancement?

As you research your career options, use sources that are as close to home as possible. While you can get some useful information from a list of career descriptions that is based on a country other than your own, careers will vary across countries. You could find vastly different pay ranges, educational requirements, labor market outlooks and even job descriptions across countries. So, ideally, you should be looking for career and labor market information that is based on information gathered for the country in which you intend to work.

Now, finding all of this information may sound pretty daunting, but there are actually plenty of great websites that provide a list of career descriptions for a huge variety of careers. Checking into these sites can be a great starting point for researching career options so you can make informed choices.

As soon as you're ready to start researching your career options, take a look at the Career Resources section of the BellaOnline Unemployment Site. I've posted some of the best, most comprehensive and up to date career description sites from a variety of countries.

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Career Empowerment Through Knowledge

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The career change educators at AnalyzeMyCareer.com use the same well respected, professional assessment tools that I have used myself to manage my own career and help my own clients discover and achieve their career goals.