RETURN TO
ENERGY
Career Choices for Ex-offenders
Take time to assess your skills, set goals, and research the right careers for you.
Finding a job is an important part of transition after incarceration. In addition to a paycheck, having steady employment also gives you:
- A chance to prove you are dependable and self-reliant
- An opportunity to learn about different cultures and ideas
- A feeling of pride and accomplishment
Make a career plan instead of looking for just any job. This will make your job search more successful.
Career vs. Job
It's true that you might have to first take a job that you don't like. But after you have gained some work experience, you will want to find a job that matches your career goals, economic needs, and interests.
Your career is a combination of education, training, past jobs, and other experience related to a specific occupation or career cluster. A job is what you do to earn a paycheck and gain new skills.
A person who has a career has thought about what type of work he wants to be doing in five or 10 years. He's also thought about what it will take to get there. Having a career is not hard, but it does takes planning.
Creating a career plan has three main steps: assess yourself, set goals, and research careers.
1. Assess Yourself
Assessing yourself means knowing what type of jobs match your interests and personality. It also means thinking about the type of skills you can offer an employer.
Ex-offenders who know which skills they have and why employers want them are more likely to find a job that is a good match for their career goals.
There are many assessment tools that help you learn about yourself and jobs that fit you. Below is a link to an interest assessment that helps you to think about what you like to do and the careers that match those interests. The skills assessment helps you find occupations that use the skills you have. These assessment tools will not tell you what to do. They help you explore options and decide for yourself.
2. Set Goals
A goal is simply what you'd like to accomplish in your career and some ideas about how you will achieve that goal. Most long-term goals can be accomplished through a series of smaller short-term goals.
If you know which career path you want to pursue, list the skills and education required for your career goal. In addition to regular job search activities (create a resume, practicing interview skills, etc.), you will also want to know what barriers might make reaching your goal difficult.
3. Research Careers
The more you know about a career path, the better prepared you will be to job search. It's important to know which occupations require which levels of education, and what those occupations pay.
Another part of researching careers is understanding background checks and other parts of the hiring process. Knowing what information employers want and how they use that information will help you to better prepare for interviews.
