Career News - Welcome to Possibilities Toronto's Online Employment Resource Centre

KATHERINE O'BRIEN, Staff Writer

Say your idea of fun is wearing a veil, owning a smoker and making honey for living. Why? Because you just love bees, you want to invest in a hive and you can't wait to quit your accounting gig as soon as possible. But before exiting your stable but humdrum career, back up your dream with some hard facts: enter career and labour market information.

You can use labour market information (LMI) to find out about trends in the world of work, the demands for specific jobs, and the kind of businesses that are opening or closing down in Canada or in your community. (This kind of research (PDF) shows, for instance, that, horrors, almost half the number of Canadian beekeepers disappeared between 1993 and 2009.) Career information, on the other hand, can help you to understand the type of duties performed by various workers, the aptitudes and skills required, the training needed and the average salaries. (For example, you can learn that most beekeepers work out West, the wages aren't that great [$10 to $17/hour], the jobs are physically demanding with a lot of heavy lifting and the tasks, repetitive.)

When you consider the relatively low pay, the far-away location and the heavy lifting, honeymaking might not seem like such a hot job prospect after all. Collecting career and labour market info may not be as exhilarating as, say, collecting royal jelly, but knowing what the deal is can prevent you from getting stung by a new career that won't deliver what you really need.

Focusing on LMI
Start the LMI process by reading the business/career sections of local and national newspapers. Keep an eye on the businesses and industries that are doing well and the ones that are down for the count. Be sure to check out CBC.ca's Disappearing Jobs, which reports on factory work, fishing, coal mining, and more.

Your fact-finding mission should include learning about what sectors or industries are doing well. The Toronto Labour Market Monitor gives an overview of up-to-date economic activity in various sectors in the GTA. Workforce planning boards, such as the Toronto Workforce Innovation Group (TWIG), have super information on the local job market including reports and news items. TWIG's Routes TO Employment website, which is geared to internationally trained professionals, profiles Toronto's financial, health care and tourism sectors as well as six others. The Invest in Ontario website looks at 13 sectors in the province including digital gaming, clean technology, and the aerospace industry.

Many of Toronto's key industries, including food processing, tourism, and biotechnology have sector councils -- industry-led partnerships between workers, employers, educators and governments. The websites of some of these councils include helpful LMI; for instance, the Construction Sector Council puts out forecasts for the construction industry.

Your next step can be looking at career or business websites, trade publications and magazines like Canadian Business. Statistics and economic outlook reports compiled by financial institutions or the Toronto Board of Trade or The Canadian Chamber of Commerce can also give you a sense of what's happening in the labour market and the economy. And if you don't mind dry facts, Statistics Canada puts out a monthly Labour Force Survey with current data on national employment figures. The Ontario government also offers monthly labour market reports based on StatCan data.

Getting Up to Speed on Careers
Professional associations such as the Railway Association of Canada or the Canadian Institute of Actuaries sometimes provide good career information. So do some regulatory colleges, such as the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT), which delivers comprehensive studies of the employment patterns of new teachers. The above-mentioned sector councils, such as BioTalent Canada, may also provide decent career information. If you're the working-with-your-hands type, there are many sites, such as tradeability.ca or apprenticeship.com that talk about a variety of skilled trades.

You can also Google your career of choice to find job postings, which can give you a general sense of the duties involved, the pay and the educational requirements.

Occupational Profiles
If you're serious about researching careers, sooner or later you have to read occupational profiles. Once you find a field that catches your eye, look into the education and certification required. When deciding between various career options, you should also investigate salary, common work hours and working conditions. If you have already determined a career path, look at information about the employment rates in your field. Here are some questions to ask when looking at career options:

• What are the long-term prospects of this career?
• What is the average unemployment rate?
• Where are most of the jobs in this field located?
• How will technology affect the field?
• What are the physical requirements of the job and the hours of work?

Top Career Info Sites
Canadian Sites
The National Occupational Classification (NOC), mainly focuses on job duties and educational requirements. It provides a standardized language for describing the work performed in the Canadian labour market, classifying occupations with a four-digit code according to skill type and level.

Although Working in Canada is a national site, it provides local reports on various occupations. In addition to outlining job duties, outlook and prospects, and information for newcomers, Working in Canada links to job postings.

Information on Ontario Job Futures is tailored to Ontario job seekers -- so be sure to make this one of your first career site stops. Other Canadian provinces have Job Future sites as well; so if you can't find air transport ramp attendants on the Ontario site, rest assured it can be found on Manitoba Job Futures.

Alberta Occupational Profiles gets a special mention because it contains such a wealth of career profiles. Bear in mind that some of the information on the site, such as educational requirements, is not relevant to Ontario readers.

Another Alberta-based website that deserves a look is Next Steps which delivers career profiles on everything from apiarists (yes, beekeepers!) to wildlife officers all based on interviews with the people who do the job.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada's Essential Skills site gives ultra-detailed summaries of the skills needed (problem solving, working with others, etc.) in a sampling of occupations.

Career Cruising is an excellent career exploration site that contains a multitude of profiles including interviews with people who work in the field. (Although this is normally a for-fee site, members of the Toronto Public Library can access this site for free.)

PayScale Salary Calculator for Canada and Workopolis' Salary Calculator specialize in salary information.

It would be remiss for us not to mention Poss.ca, where we post a variety of engaging and well-researched career profiles.

U.S.A. Sites
The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistic's Occupational Outlook Handbook contains comprehensive and detailed career information -- of course the salary, education and job prospects sections do not apply to Canadian readers.

O*NET Online, another comprehensive American site, contains information about the tools and technology used in occupations and the knowledge, skills and abilities needed.

The U. S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration's Career One Stop delivers a huge number of career resources from websites such as Wetfeet.com, which offers both career and industry profiles, or The Princeton Review.

The Wisegeek website is packed full of career articles. You can learn all about jobs from the mundane (grocery clerk) to the exotic (bullfighter).

Glassdoor.com posts anonymous reviews of companies from current or past employees (including Toronto companies) as well as salary info.