Exploring Careers

Assessing Your Interests and Values

  • Watch the following video on the Five-Step Career Decision Making Process which includes:
    1. Self-Assessment
    2. Identify and Research Options
    3. Evaluate and Prioritize
    4. Take Action and Try Options
    5. Reflect and Re-evaluate

Consider both the Job Function and Industry 

  • When researching various career pathways and jobs, it’s important to look at both the industry and job function.
  • Industry refers to a field, often named for its primary product/service, such as the Aerospace or Technology Industry.
  • Job functions are the roles within an industry, such as an engineer or marketing expert, and are often found in all industries.
  • For example, Jane is a finance manager at Google, so she is in the technology industry, but her job function is finance.
  • The job function is the expertise you build and is transferable throughout your career, across industries.

Career Pathways

  • Explore a broad range of career paths and interest areas. Students are not limited to just one career pathway and OCS recommends exploring broadly across several fields. Select Explore Careers at the top menu to view over 20 specific pages on industries and graduate school with events, articles, job postings for that particular topic.

Skills Evaluation

  • Use the Skills Discovery Tool below to identify the most important skills needed for a specific job title, industry, or occupation.

Learn More About Careers in Energy – 2025 Student Conference

Dominion Energy is excited to announce that the fifth Careers in Energy Student Conference is now accepting applications! The conference helps us recruit outstanding interns and co-ops such as yourself. We are thrilled that this year, the conference will take …

By Stanley Willard Jr.
Stanley Willard Jr. Assistant Director of Employer Relations
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RareRising Intern

Rare Rising is a registered 501c3 nonprofit that delivers patient-centered, evidence-based research, incubates emerging rare disease entities on their journey and explores novel solutions to positively impact rare disease communities. We engage in work that supports advancing systems and policy …

By Kristin McJunkins
Kristin McJunkins Director of Advanced Degree Applications & STEM Career Advising
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Forage’s Virtual Experiences: Great Resume Builder!

Forage offers free, very-short virtual work experiences, which are online programs designed and delivered by leading companies. Each virtual work experience contains a series of resources and tasks designed to simulate the real-world experience of starting a career. Forage experiences …

By Yale Office of Career Strategy
Yale Office of Career Strategy
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Skills Discovery ToolIn partnership withLightcast logo

Explore occupations by career categories and pathways and use real time labor market data to power your decision making.

First, choose an industry of interest, then filter for occupation. (If you'd like to see data for a specific location only, filter by state.)

Type in a keyword to select a relevant occupation. (If you'd like to see data for a specific location only, filter by state.)

Job Search Resources

View All Resources

YC Career Outcomes

The Office of Career Strategy collects information about Yale College graduates. This tool allows users to search outcomes by year and major. Please visit Statistics & Reports for more information on our data collection.

  • First Destination summaries are based on the Knowledge Rate of graduate outcomes six months after graduation according to National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) guidelines.
  • Knowledge Rate, defined by NACE, includes direct survey responses and basic employment or graduate school information confirmed through LinkedIn. Yale’s information below on Starting Salary and Time of Year Offer Received is based only on direct survey responses.

Helpful Tips for the Interactive Tool:

  • There is no Enter or Submit Button, results will appear automatically
  • The default is ‘All Years’ or ‘All Majors.’ Choose specific years or majors for more granular results. Uncheck the selected major(s) to reset your search.
  • The tool returns results with at least five responses. For small majors, choose ‘All Years’ to show results
  • To ensure confidentiality, results are reported in the aggregate
  • If you require additional information contact the Office of Career Strategy

Most Recent Class Overview: Class of 2024

Knowledge Rate Employed or in Graduate School Mean Starting Salary Top Five Industries
91.4% of those graduating between July 1, 2023-June 30, 2024.

  • Survey Responses: 1,227 (80.6%)
  • Confirmed through LinkedIn: 299 (19.4%)
 93.5% employed or in graduate school within six months of graduation $90,097 among graduates employed full-time in the United States Financial Services, Education, Technology, Consulting, and Healthcare

 

  • First Destination
  • Top Employers
  • Employment Industry and Function
  • Size of the Organization
  • Starting Salary
  • Time of Year Offer Received
  • Internships, Research, and Study Abroad Experiences
  • First Destination Locations
  • Top Universities
  • Advanced Degrees Pursued

First Destination

First Destination refers to the postgraduate plans of Yale College graduates six months after graduation. The pursuits of Yale graduates include employment, graduate school, independent research, military service, and more.

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