View of Saint Joseph Hall, a stone building with terra cotta roof tiles, through the trees

Career Assessment and Planning Resources

FOCUS Career Assessment

FOCUS is a self-paced, online career and education planning tool for use by college students. It will enable you to self-assess your career-relevant personal qualities and explore career fields and major areas of study that are most compatible with your assessment results. Students who use FOCUS make better decisions about their goals and plans and learn how to self-manage their careers.

Career planning with FOCUS leads to the following advantages for students:

  • While in college: More goal-focused and motivated – Higher academic achievement – Fewer transfers and switching of majors – Graduate on time
  • After Graduation: Better entry job with higher income – more satisfied, more productive in their career – Less career change, faster advancement

How to Create Your Student User Account in FOCUS

  • Go to FOCUS Career Assessment
  • Click on “CREATE AN ACCOUNT”
  • Enter college access code: griffin
  • Enter your personal information being sure to select a username and password that you will remember easily.

Once you have created an account, your original account remains active and will store all your results each time you use it. Enter your username and password (do not create a new account).

Career Planning Resources

U.S. Department of Labor O*Net Occupational Information Network provides occupational information for the Nation. The database is a flexible, skills-based system that describes job requirements and worker attributes. Team O*Net designed a set of self-directed career exploration and assessment tools to help you consider career options, prepare for work, and make career transitions. They include an Interest Profiler, a Work Importance Profiler, and an Ability Profiler. They will allow users to relate their interests, work values, and abilities to specific occupations.

Job Shadow: Here at Job Shadow you can read real interviews from people as they talk about the jobs they do and the careers they have. If you’re career hunting, trying to find out what career is right for you, don’t like your current job, want to career mentor and help others, or just plain curious you can read about and explore the different career options and shadow people’s jobs online. Click on the ‘career hunting’ link to the right to get started if you’re looking to find motivation, career information, and a job you’ll love.

NerdWallet Cost of Living Calculator: Students can critically evaluate how far their money will go when considering internship or job opportunities in different cities. Additionally, the Cost of Living Index allows students to tailor their comparisons based on demographics (i.e. student or recent graduate) and gives them relatable and easy points of references such as the price of a cup of coffee or a movie ticket as well as essential living costs like rent, transportation and healthcare.

MoneyGeek Cost of Living Calculator: How far will your salary go in another city? Compare cost of living between U.S. cities and the national average with our comprehensive calculator.
Intuit Mint Cost of Living Calculator: If you plan on moving to a new city or are just curious about what it might cost to live somewhere else, use the cost of living calculator to see the difference we’d expect between your current location and your desired one.
Glassdoor: With Glassdoor, students can research employee reviews, salaries, and interview questions on over 280,000 companies to help them make important career decisions. For a tutorial video on how to get the most out of Glassdoor click here: Glassdoor Tutorial
Ready Prep Interview: With Ready Prep Interview, you can find interview questions specific to the position you are interviewing for!
My Perfect Resume: Here you will find advice on how to create resumes and cover letters, plus guidance on how to navigate interviews, job searches and offers, all written by their team of seasoned Career Advice Authors.