Need Help?
For individual research help, schedule an appointment to meet with a librarian.
The following resources are freely available on the Internet. These websites provide quality information and are updated regularly.
- Occupational Outlook HandbookThe Occupational Outlook Handbook is a publication of the U.S. Dept. of Labor. It provides information about specific jobs, educational requirements, average income, and future potential.
- My Next MoveMy Next Move is a career site tailored to people exploring new careers. It includes the ability to search specific keywords, browse, or take a self assessment to identify which careers best match your interests.
- O*Net OnlineComprehensive occupational descriptions and data for use by job seekers, under the sponsorship of the US Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA).
The following resources are library databases that you have access to as a NOVA student. You will be prompted to log in with your VCCS username to access the materials.
- Ferguson's Career Guidance Center This link opens in a new windowIncludes information on job and industry profiles, job-hunting and workplace skills, career and industry resources, and college planning and financial aid. (NVCC)
- Salem Press Careers This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
A full-text database of articles to assist students and job-seekers to learn more about today's most popular careers (NVCC).
Searching the NOVA Libraries catalog for reference entries can be a great place to start.
When thinking about selecting your keywords it's important to keep in mind the ways in which WHERE you are searching will influence the results. For instance, if you are searching in the Occupational Outlook Handbook (linked above), you wouldn't need to use "career" as a keyword, because all of the results returned in that database will automatically relate to careers. The library catalog is different.
After watching the video above, use the technique shown to search for one of the following career paths using the search box on the NOVA Libraries homepage:
- information technology AND career
- accountant AND career
- nursing AND career
The AND in the search is what is known as a Boolean operator. Operators tell the database how you want your keywords to interact. There are three primary operators:
- AND: when you use AND, you will get results with BOTH keywords
- OR: when you use OR, you will get results with EITHER keyword
- NOT: when you use NOT, you will get results with the first keyword, but NOT the second.
Most library databases and the library catalog use Boolean operators.
Google defaults to an AND search. When you are searching using Google, you can use the other operators by going to the advanced search option in the settings.