Careers Galore! — Doug Reamer and his team maintain more than 900 occupational briefs on the award-winning Website CareerZone. — Photo by Deborah A. Miles Member creates career site for adults, students Want a new career? Click on this By DEBORAH A. MILES Foreseeing the value of guiding young people to the right occupations and the need for some adults to change careers in times of downsizing and job insecurity, Doug Reamer — a PEF member and a principle statistician at the state Labor Department (DOL) — has developed an innovative website, www.NYCareerZone.org, to do just that. Reamer heads the five-person team that created this career-exploration program, which was first distributed on compact disk. CareerZone provides lots of free information on every imaginable occupation. And it enables users to assess their skills and discover the capabilities needed to succeed in today’s competitive job market. Aid to students “CareerZone is primarily geared to students, but since it got on the Internet and people have found out about it, it’s being used by people all across the world,” Reamer said. So far, residents of at least 18 different countries have logged on to this site, in addition to students from universities nationwide. Reamer said Duke University in North Carolina is a heavy user but, oddly enough, New York universities haven’t caught on as quickly. Nevertheless, in New York alone, more than 30,000 students, mainly from middle schools and high schools, have visited the site and registered on the career portfolio. “The biggest and newest addition to the Website for kids in New York is this career portfolio. It was released just this year,” Reamer said. “It allows kids to store personal career information about themselves through their school years. It saves assessment results, suggests what jobs might be of interest to them, and automatically interacts with the database and sends more career information back.” DOL worked with the state Education Department to design this portfolio to match and complement the career plans students prepare in the classroom. “The most popular occupations kids today check into are doctor, lawyer, computer programmer and marine biologist,” Reamer said. “To some extent, popularity is related to the media. If there’s a movie out there about Flipper, marine biologist will go to the top of the list.” Great aid for grownups too For older job seekers wanting a career change, the site provides a wealth of information. For example, if you’re interested in a career as a machinist or nurse, with a few clicks of the mouse, you can discover a complete job description, the educational background required, places to obtain your credentials, the salary range, even jobs currently available in your area. And for more than 300 occupations, the website offers video clips demonstrating people in actual work settings performing tasks involved. State, federal award winner CareerZone is an outgrowth of a federal database called O*NET that replaces the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. “The US Department of Labor offered competitive grants to people to see if they could take this database and make it useful to the public. We won the grant, and later were awarded two more,” Reamer said. The program is now supported by federal funds. CareerZone received the governor’s Workforce Champions Award in 1999 and also was honored by the US Department of Labor with its New Learning Technologies Award. www.nycareerzone.org