Public Health Career Paths

Informative Career Research Report
To get the job you want, you need to have a plan. That’s the goal of this assignment: to help you develop
strategies that will help you in your search for a job or internship, or to help you get accepted to graduate
school.
Audience: The academic advisor you have been assigned to in your department who has requested that
you to inform him or her of your career plans in order to better advise you. If you don’t have a departmental
academic advisor, address the report to the chairperson of your department.
There are four aspects of the assignment you will research:
• Trends—Employment trends and job growth projections for your field
• Three different types of careers within your profession
• Networking
• Job search plan: the resources and strategies you will use to actually look for a job.
If you already have a professional job and you want to stay in that field, approach this assignment from the
perspective of where you want to be in five years.
Trends—Describe the projected employment trends in your prospective field and more specifically, which
types of jobs are expected to have the most growth—five or even ten years from now. Research whether
there are any burgeoning careers in your field. For instance, will there be new kinds of jobs/workers
needed?
Types of Careers—There are many different types of jobs or academic pathways within a particular field.
Research three that directly relate to your major and describe the responsibilities and qualifications neededh type of job or the background you need to follow particular academic pathways. Also include
the salary you can expect to earn in each field. This section is a description of the broad categories of
careers/pathways you would follow in your field, not a specific job opening. The Bureau of Labor Statistics,
O’Net.gov., UMBC’s Career Center, the student chapter of a professional organization, or a graduate
school website are among the sources you can use.
Networking—It’s a key part of any job search. The goal of this section is to start building and expanding
your network. Interview one professional—in-person, by phone or by email—who could help you get a job.
Then make inquiries to two other people knowledgeable about the field. They could be actual hiring
managers you met at a job fair or during an internship, or contacts who can help you get leads. Or it could
be a person you would like to know.
Use the information you get from your interviews/inquires the same way you would use research from an
article or study. Incorporate the relevant pieces of it into your report. Don’t transcribe the entire interview
and include it in the report. You would cite interviews and inquiries in the text and document them the same
way you would any other source. (Some things you might ask: How did they land the job?, what are the
demands of the job?, what kind of preparation will you need for it?, what is the salary?) Go beyond the
surface; ask them about the work culture.
Job Search Plan— How will you go about looking for a job, in other words, your plan? Which resources or
strategies will you concentrate on to look for a job? This will usually involve a combination of strategies,
such as an internship with a federal agency, then applying to USA Jobs.gov., or attending career fairs and
using UMBC Works. Or you might apply to an entry level corporate program and network through Linked
In. Your job hunt should be focused, not random.
. To summarize, please describe:
• Three types of positions or academic careers you are interested in and what they consist of.
• The employment trends and growth of present and future jobs in your field.
• What you learned about the field from current employees or others you interviewed.
• The plan you will follow to look for a job, consisting of specific resources you will use to search for the job
you want and why you think they will be effective.
• Synthesize your research into a 6 to 6 ½-page, double-spaced, typewritten report
Requirement Checklist:
Memo Format
Six, separate sources are required. The interview and inquires count as sources. You can use a source,
such as O’Net more than once, but it will only count as one source.
Apply the principles of learning theory to your organization. Use at least two emphasis strategies
discussed in class: subheads, bullets, or bold-face lead ins.
Use the documentation format that is standard for your field. Both in-text citations and a Works Cited or
References page are required.
You don’t have to go any further than the Appendix Reference Handbook in the Back Matter of your
textbook to figure out how to do citations for APA, IEEE and APA style. There are very clear examples for
each style, starting on page 62