Ferguson’s Career Guidance Center provides a myriad databases for both students and adults preparing for a new career or a career change. Ferguson’s provides scholarship information as well as resources on academic programmes and on careers that do not require a four‐year degree. Users will find profiles for over 2,000 jobs in more than 90 countries and can access information through searches by industry skill, job level, education, or salary range as well as by popular government indexes such as the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.
Job entries include an overview of the position, salary range, employment and advancement prospects, and required education level. Information is provided on relevant unions and trade associations as well as opportunities for minority groups and women. Job searchers can peruse industry overviews. The overviews give background information on the industry and describe its structure and outlook. The section on industry resources includes contact information. Of interest to first‐time job seekers is a check‐list to help users determine their readiness to enter the workforce. These employability skills include categories such as mathematics, computer, communication, and interpersonal skills. The Web site also links to a 16‐page, bi‐monthly career newsletter, Career Opportunities News, which spotlights articles such as “Re´sume´s should not be works of fiction” (May/June 2003). The database includes links to other online resources, such as job listings.
Accessing information in the databases is easy. The left menu provides links to the main components and remains constant; however, the screen must be maximized in order to see all of the options. There is a Search careers function that can be used at any point and returns a comprehensive listing. A search for “librarian” yielded 22 results, from “academic law librarian” to “media or curriculum specialist (school libraries)”. In addition to keyword searching, users can further access career profiles through several browse functions. These include by college, graduate, and athletic scholarships; by academic programmes, covering colleges that offer cooperative education programmes and institutional accrediting programmes; and by non‐academic programmes, covering career opportunities without a four‐year college degree and national apprenticeship programmes. The database also includes a section entitled Four steps to a new job that provides short synopses on eight different topics. These include Choosing a career, Assessment tests, Soft skills, and The future world of work.
This database provides quick career guidance in easy‐to‐understand language. It is easy to navigate and provides a useful help section. Ferguson’s Career Guidance Center will benefit high‐school students, who are exploring their future career options as well as special libraries with a focus on career counselling. The database will also prove useful for people interested in exploring their options for a career change.
