About Career Pathways

Career Pathways

About Career Pathways

Benefits of Career Pathways

Exploring the Pathways

More Resources

Career pathways is one way to group your career choices. Careers with common features are in the same pathway. Pathways can be used during career exploration as a way to find your best career match.

Minnesota has developed a helpful career pathways diagram for exploring career pathways. You have the option of exploring careers at a very broad level or digging into the career pathways themselves. The diagram includes the following main categories:

At the broadest level are six Career Fields. Exploring career fields is helpful when you first start exploring career options.

The career fields are broken down into 16 Career Clusters. Careers that need the same knowledge and skills are grouped in the same cluster. Each cluster can include hundreds of different careers.

Each career cluster includes one or more of the 81 Career Pathways. A pathway is a group of related career specialties within the career cluster. The pathway has its own knowledge and skill requirements. Educational programs can be developed around each pathway. These programs are called Programs of Study, which include curriculum that helps learners prepare for a career. They are sequential and based on industry expectations and skill standards. Once implemented at the local level, the career pathways will allow learners (from high school to college) to choose from courses within a program of study that will give them the specific knowledge, skills and abilities needed to pursue their career choice.

The center of the career pathways diagram shows Knowledge and Foundation Skills. These are a core set of skills needed to be ready for work and college.

Use the Exploring the Pathways page on ISEEK to find out how the career fields, clusters, and pathways work together. Or, learn why the career exploration framework is useful for exploring careers on the Benefits of Career Pathways page.

Page last updated in July 2008.