Investigate Career Options
This step takes mental legwork, but it's probably the most interesting. You need to figure out what jobs might match your interests, skills, and lifestyle requirements, and to do so, you need to get creative.
There are a number of resources available to help with your research. You can visit our page on Choosing the Right Career, which contains many useful links to help identify careers that would match your needs. You can search the EDD's labor market database to get information on jobs you think you might like. You can go to the public library and ask the reference desk for assistance.
There are also some hands-on ways to figure out if a job is right for you. You can volunteer at an organization that interests you, and gain valuable work experience, references, and networking opportunities.
You can also contact someone who has a job you're interested in and see if you can set up a Job Shadowing arrangement. Job Shadowing lets you watch a person while he works and gather valuable information about how he found the position, what his responsibilities are, and what he likes and dislikes about the job. This is a great way to get a more realistic sense of what it's actually like to do the kind of work you're considering. And don't be shy-people usually love to talk about what they do.
