Exploring Careers

Our career assessment resources are designed to help you explore your options, identify your strengths, and make informed decisions about your future. Whether you're starting fresh or considering a new direction, we're here to guide you every step of the way.

Career Assessments at Hawkeye

Hawkeye offers two free, online career assessment tools: My Next Move and Focus 2 Career.

Both tools are designed to help you discover potential career paths based on your interests. They also provide detailed information about careers that match your profile, including required skills, education, and job outlook.

Taking the Focus 2 Career Assessment

You can access FOCUS 2 online anytime, anywhere, on any phone, tablet, PC, Mac, or iPad.

1. Log In to Focus 2

   • New Users: Create your personal Focus 2 account to log in for the first time.
     Access Code: redtails

   • Returning Users: Log in anytime to access your account.

2. Start by taking the “My Academic Strengths” assessment.
3. Then, complete each self-assessment in the following order. After finishing each assessment, return to the home page (house icon in the upper left corner) to begin the next one. As you work through each assessment, FOCUS 2 automatically saves your results.
   1. Work Interest
   2. Values
   3. Personality
   4. Skills
   5. Leisure
4. You can explore your results individually or combine them for a more comprehensive view.
5. Save the majors and occupations that interest you as you review them.

Your results are stored online, always accessible to you and your career advisor. Feel free to change your mind on previous choices, revisit sections, or explore new options.

Meet with a Career Advisor

After you've taken the Focus 2 Career Assessment, complete the Focus 2 Guided Worksheet [PDF] and schedule a meeting with Career Advising to review your results and start planning your career pathway.

We’re excited to help you work toward achieving your career goals!

Now that you have an idea of what you want to be, do some research to learn more about the career, including the salary and job outlook. Here are some useful websites:

• Bureau of Labor Statistics: Provides detailed job descriptions, wage information, and job outlook.
• Career One Stop: Offers informational videos about different careers and jobs.
• O*Net Online: Includes job descriptions and career field research.

Informational interviews and job shadows can give you a clear idea about a career you’re interested in.

Once you’ve picked a few careers that interest you, talk to your friends, family, and employers to find professionals who might answer questions about their daily work. Job shadows let you watch a professional while they work. Both informational interviews and job shadows will help you learn more about the career, give you real-life experience, show the pros and cons, and help you find other career options while building connections in your field of interest.

These experiences can make your career choice clearer and be very educational!

Talking to your family, friends, teachers, employers, and others who know you well about the college programs or careers you’re interested in can help you decide if those options are a good fit for you.