Career Voyage, is a comprehensive career guidance tool. The OTEN Counsellors are all Accredited Career Voyage practitioners and have extensive experience in its administration.

Career Voyage will lead you through a systematic decision making process and broaden your horizons by exploring the whole range of occupations. Sometimes the jobs suggested may confirm your existing ideas and provide backup by listing similar jobs. At the same time, the program may suggest jobs and/or careers which you have not previously considered. Career Voyage will also notify us - as the Advisers - of any problems which may have appeared in your responses such as inconsistency, confusion or negativity and suggest courses of action for us to take with you.

Career Voyage will take you through a four stage process:

1. Section Choice
You may choose the appropriate level of education and training by selecting one of five levels. These levels range from minimum education and training to university graduate level.

2. Occupational Interest Guide
An interactive questionnaire will ask you about your occupational interests as they relate to the world of work. An occupational interest profile will be produced with clear, specific and supportive graphical and text information. As the Advisers, we can enter the Adviser screen and check your results for issues which may require attention.

3. Job Suggestions
After completing the Occupational Interest Guide, you will move on to a second interactive questionnaire involving a further eighty job factors (including working conditions, health, talents, working hours and so on. Completion of this section leads to twenty job suggestions for you, based on what you have said about yourself. Each job suggestion also has key information about that job.

4. Research and Action Planning
Using software features such as "Pros and Cons" of each job, "Similar Jobs", "Other Jobs" (that is. those not originally listed as suggestions), together with the flexibility to change aspects of the results, you can interrogate the jobs database and develop realistic career plans.

Before proceeding with the Career Voyage we would like to gather a little information about you. This will assist us in determining factors such as the appropriate level of education and training at which you should undertake the Career Voyage and give us some idea of your educational and career background and goals.

Before taking the next step in exploring career options with you, we need some more information about you.  Send an email to the OTEN Counselling and Careers Service and tell us a little about:

- Your educational background - for example, the level to which you completed secondary education, any other courses/training you have undertaken
- Your employment background including any type of work/role you have had in the past or work that you are doing now - include casual, part-time, full-time work
- Your other work-related activities including for example, voluntary/unpaid/community work
- Your other personal interests/hobbies
- Your reasons for wanting to do the Career Voyage - for example, to find a job, to enter the workforce for the first time, to get a better job, for retraining/career change, career development /growing in your job
- Your values, skills/abilities, preferred work environments
- Anything else that you feel will help us get to know you a little better
It would also be useful if you could provide a contact telephone number in case we need to speak with you about your career or study plans.

Once we have this information, we will reply to you with instructions for you to complete the Career Voyage.

Finally it is important to remember that the career planning process is likely to happen several times during our lifetimes as we first define and then redefine ourselves and our goals.  We look forward to helping facilitate your journey through this very important and lifelong process.