This week, we look at different places where you can find career exploration ideas.
We look at the bookstore.
Bookstores may have books, magazines, newspapers, and other content that may help you clarify a career.
Depending upon the reader’s interest, about anything in a bookstore could (in theory) help a person along their career exploration journey. For example, you may read a travel book–and become interested in a travel career.
This post will focus on some general career resources that may be helpful.
Some general career resources could be
Education–you may get information about a particular field of study or educational program. For example, you may find information about the GED (General Educational Development (GED)). GED is an alternative credential for a high–-school diploma in the United States.
Information on specific national tests – you may find information on specific national tests used for admissions in educational programs. For example, the GRE (Graduate Record Examinations ) is a national test used for admissions to some graduate-level programs in the United States.
Information on the Job Search–you may find information on the job search itself, like how to create a better resume.
Information to help you with career exploration itself. For example, What Color Is Your Parachute?: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers is an annual edition with career exploration and job-hunting information. What Color Is Your Parachute can give the reader exercises to create a flower. The flower will (ideally) create features of the ideal career for the reader.
You may find your next career idea at the bookstore.
Hope–Some ways to have hope in the remote job search.
This week, we talk about hope.
Hope can be a critical (and essential) part of the job search.
Hope can give us the energy to keep going when our job search goes nowhere.
Here are some ideas to have hope in a job search:
(1) Have alternatives
This post is about hope inspired by what I read from a 2013 edition called What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers written by Richard N. Bolles. What Color Is Your Parachute focused on giving career exploration and job-hunting ideas. Richard N. Bolles passed away in 2017. Publishers publish and update the book annually, providing current information on the job-hunting world. According to Google, the 2025 edition of What Color Is Your Parachute has a publication date of around February 18, 2025.
Richard N. Bolles expressed that to keep hope alive, you have alternatives.
He expressed this in the 2013 edition.
“Hope depends upon taking care that we have at least two alternatives, in every situation we find ourselves, and with every task confronting us.” (p. 1)
Ideally, you would have at least 2 career ideas, at least 2 job search techniques, and so on.
Having one option is a recipe for ruin: “To have only one goal, one option, in any situation, is a sure recipe for despair” (p. 2)
So, try to have more than one choice in different things related to your job choice.
How do I pick an alternative career option?
Ideally, you are not just randomly selecting an alternative career option but finding one that is related to the other career options you are trying to find.
Here are some ideas that may help.
Know your ideal career (or group of ideal careers), and then look at some features of your ideal career and see if you can share some features of your ideal career in your alternative career.
For example, you may be interested in being a professional baseball player but cannot make it to the major leagues of professional baseball because of competition. So, you may decide to become a baseball sports reporter–the baseball sports reporter would share the features of baseball.
The Flower
One way to determine your ideal career is to do the “flower” exercise in the What Color Is Your Parachute book.
What Color Is Your Parachute has many ideas on career exploration; one of the central ideas is doing a “flower”.
A key part of the What Color Is Your Parachute was doing exercises to learn more about your ideal job–you would do exercises that would create a flower. The flower would represent features of what you would like your ideal job to be. Knowing the ideal was essential to increase the odds of working in a work environment that would better serve your natural talents and gifts. The idea of the flower was that a flower may do well in some environments and not well in other environments.
The “flower” exercise is one way to learn about your ideal career; another idea is to talk to a career professional.
(2) Career Professional
Career Professional to help you–you may find hope talking to a career professional. Career Professional can have other names like career coach, career counselor, or other similar title,
A Career Professional may give you hope by giving you guidance in your job search and giving you insight into what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong.
(3) Social Groups
You can also find hope in being involved with social groups–sometimes, having social groups around you can help you with the job search stress.
Like to mention one type of social group of interest:
Job Hunting Groups Job Hunting Groups are social groups where job seekers gather, and they come together to help each other in each person’s job journey. You can gather information that will help you search for a job. You can also reduce the loneliness of the job search. According to a Google search, Job Hunting groups may be called “job search clubs, job search councils, or networking groups.” (from a Google search asking “What are job hunting groups called?”)
Other social groups can include spiritual/religious, athletic, book clubs, and local travel (there may be options in your local area to visit low-cost or free travel places).
Religious–belief in a transition after death
The channel is not really focused on religion, but it gives out an idea of social groups and believing in a religion where death is a transition. This may provide hope when everything else in this life in this world has fallen apart.
(4) Success in something
The job search can be frustrating and filled with rejection.
Another way to have hope is to find something else in your life unrelated to the job search you can succeed with. You can define success in any way you want.
You could have “success” in doing a physical exercise routine, or success in doing a hobby, or success in reading a book. Find something you can have success that you can achieve so you know you are successful in life. So when the job search is a “failure,” you can have something else in life filled with success.
(5) Volunteering
If you are able, you may also have hope through volunteering.
Volunteering can distract you from the job search and give you a way to focus on an activity that can help you feel productive and useful.
(6) Ask for Help
Sometimes, during the job search, you may feel that everything is falling apart; another way to have hope is to ask for help.
You may find a counselor, talk to a friend, or talk to a family member that you can ask to find hope.
(7) Failure
Failure can often result from the job search, but one way to look at failure is as a learning tool. What can I learn from failure to help me get better at what I am doing? You may improve the job search from failure.
Use A Career Professional to help learn from Failure.
(Let me combine this idea with seeing a career professional—sometimes, in a job search, you will not get feedback from the failure of the job search except for obtaining a group of “No’s,” so a career professional may help you learn from failure in the job search.)
These are some ideas to have hope.
Hope can increase your chances of finding a remote job and give you the energy to do so.
This week we look at Glassdoor.com (www.glassdoor.com)
(I called Glassdoor.com in the post by the word Glassdoor)
Glassdoor. is a general job website where you can find job positions in different fields, covering the entire United States.
Need to create an account
To access all the content on Glassdoor, you must create an account (the account is free).
You may also need to leave a review on an employer you have experience with–you may need to leave a review to access the content Glassdoor provides.
Glassdoor offers content choices on top of the screen.
A person can select the content choice a person would like to see.
My description of Glassdoor is based on a screen from a home computer. Your mobile device may display Glassdoor content differently.
Some of the different content choices are:
Community
Click the word “Community” at the top of the screen to go to the Community Section.
You can read different posts from people about features in the career area. Posts can vary on different topics. Some topics can be job search mechanics, education, and background checks.
Jobs
Click the word “Jobs” at the top of the screen to go to the Job Section.
You can search for different jobs in different fields.
You can do a keyword search to find jobs in different fields.
Type “Remote” in the location search box to find remote opportunities.
Companies
Click “Companies” at the top of the screen to go to the Companies Section.
You can learn different information about companies.
Reviews
One of the primary uses of Glassdoor is its review section — getting reviews on a potential employer. The review section can help job seekers avoid a work culture that does not work for them.
You can learn about an employer by reading reviews about that potential employer.
You may want to read reviews on a potential employer before filling out an application. You can avoid the effort of filling out an application for a potential employer you do not want.
Salaries
Click “Salaries” at the top of the screen to go to the Salaries Section.
You can get information on different salaries for different careers.
You can also get information on how to negotiate a salary.
Glassdoor is a general career website with opportunities in various fields. You can also look up remote opportunities. You may find your next remote opportunity with Glassdoor.
So here we will explore this week’s remote opportunities for government organizations in Omaha, Nebraska.
No Response So Far
I wrote an email asking some of the government organizations in Omaha, Nebraska what their remote opportunities may be; so far, I have not heard anything. If I hear something, then I will update this information.
Best Advice
The best advice I could give is to look at the employment section of the government organization you are interested in and see what you find.
List of Government Organizations for Omaha, Nebraska
Here is a list of some of the government organizations in Omaha, Nebraska
I thought I would do a fun, happy, current topic on Superman.
My fiction preference
One of my favorite superheroes is Superman.
I often associate Superman with being positive, optimistic, and hope.
The fiction pattern I usually enjoy is where there is a clear good character (or a team of good characters) and a clear bad character (or a team of Bad Characters). And you can cheer on the good characters and hope the bad characters get defeated. You have a pattern where you have the good and bad characters in a conflict- the good and bad characters fight each other, and the good characters win, ideally; you have a positive ending where you feel hopeful about the future- and you have a hopeful, positive feeling at the end.
I get my fiction from movies. I enjoy going to movies and you have a positive ending where the good characters defeat the bad characters, and you leave the movie theater in a positive and hopeful mood.
So, I was glad to see a new Superman movie coming this summer (or those in the United States)
The trailer looks optimistic- and hopes that Superman will be victorious.
One place to watch the Superman trailer is at the link below!
Here is a trailer for the movie.
From the YouTube Channel: DC
YouTube Video Trailor called “Superman | Official Teaser Trailer”
The YouTube Trailor address is the following link address
Superman, in the movie, works as a reporter for the Daily Planet newspaper. So, a question:
Does Superman work as a news reporter remotely as a newspaper reporter in the upcoming movie coming out in the summer of 2025?
We see Superman goes to an office in the trailer, so he does not have a 100% remote job, but does he work part of the time as a newspaper reporter in his home–does he have a hybrid remote job?
I am curious about your opinions.
Leave your comments. Leave your comments on the “Does Superman work remotely?” YouTube channel on the Live Your Life Learning YouTube channel. The link is below:
YouTube Video from Life Your Life Learning Channel
YouTube Video is called “Does Superman work remotely?”
This week we look at advertising.
And how advertising can influence a career.
Advertising
You can find advertisements anywhere. You will likely see advertisements when you watch TV, listen to the radio, or read a newspaper.
Advertisements can give you a positive impression of a particular product or service. The advertisement hopes to influence your behavior, such as buying a product or service. Advertisements can be on anything from aspirin to zoos. One can also advertise careers.
You may see advertisements for careers in several places. For example, you may see advertisements for people enlisting and working in the military. Another example is that you may see advertisements from schools seeking to have you become a student in their educational institution to enter a particular career. Want ads in a newspaper can be another example of advertisements that have people apply for the advertised job. Another example is that you may see help-wanted signs hanging from local organizations you see in our community looking for people. The local organizations could be anything like fast-food restaurants or stores in your local mall that post job vacancies you see while living in your community.
Advertisements can give you information and make you aware of options you may not have been aware of before. Be mindful that advertisements provide a positive impression on a particular product or service (like have you entered particular jobs or schools of training). Advertisements may not give you the entire picture of a job – particularly the more negative parts. Use other methods to gain information on a particular job besides advertisements.
You may find out about your next career through advertisements
We look at some of the federal government websites that focus on careers.
The following list of federal government websites from the United States Department of Labor.Collection of websites that have general career information from the United States Department of Labor
This week, we look at remote federal job positions.
Below is one way to search for remote job positions; listed here are generalities; check with the position you are interested in regarding the remote arrangements of that job.
USA Jobs Websites
The USA Jobs website is a one-way for people to search for federal job positions.
USA Jobs
Type in: www.usajobs.gov
USA Jobs is a federal government website that helps job seekers find job openings. USA Jobs described itself as
“About USAJOBS USAJOBS connects job seekers with federal employment opportunities across the United States and around the world. As the federal government’s official employment site, USAJOBS helps the right people find the right jobs. (from https://help.usajobs.gov/about)
The federal government system has two types of remote job positions:
Remote–a job position that is 100% remote most of the time; may occasionally report to an office
Telework–these partial remote positions allow you to work from home, but you must go into an office at various times.
A description of these two types of remote job positions is below.
Remote Jobs
USA Jobs describes remote jobs as:
“A remote job in the federal government is one where you are not expected to report to an official agency worksite regularly. Instead, you will work from your home or other alternative worksite either within or outside of the commuting area of your agency’s official worksite.” (from https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/job-announcement/remote)
“Am I expected to come to an office?
As a remote worker, you may occasionally travel to an office for training or other reasons, but you will not regularly commute to an office for your day-to-day work.” (from https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/job-announcement/remote)
How to search for Remote job positions
Go to USAJobs.gov
You will then see a search feature at the top of the screen.
Type “Remote” in the “Location or Remote” box.
Then click the “Search” box.
You will then get a listing of remote jobs.
Telework Jobs
What is telework (hybrid)?
Many federal jobs offer the option to work from home and from an office location. Sometimes this is referred to as a hybrid schedule or hybrid work, but the federal government calls this telework. How often you are required to report to an office depends on the agency and the job duties.
Telework-eligible jobs are not the same as remote positions, which is a position where you work from home or an approved alternative worksite without a requirement to regularly go into an office. Review the job announcement to understand the requirements before applying to a job. (from https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/job-announcement/telework)
How to search for Telework job positions
Go to www.usajobs.gov
You will find a search tool at the top of the screen.
Put in a geographical location where you would like to work.
You will hopefully get a list of job positions.
You can then search for this list of job positions by telework.
You have some choices on the right side of the screen.
You can select the plus mark next to the word “Location.”
You then will get a menu of choice to appear.
Select the choice that says “Offers telework.”
You then should get a list of job positions that offer the telework option.
Telework jobs sometimes require you to report to an office, so you need to express a particular geographical location.
Hiring Path Filter
Other filters
You may want to add additional filters to the list of jobs.
You may wish to apply for a Hiring Path Filter.
Click the box plus sign next to the words “Hiring Paths” to open up a menu of different options.
The federal government reserves specific jobs for people with a particular background (for example, some federal jobs require people to be veterans)
The Hiring Path filter lists different filters based on a person’s background. For example, the “Veterans” filter applies to federal government jobs for veterans.
The more filters you can select, the more job positions you would be qualified for.
About everyone will select the “Open to the public” Hiring Path filter.
Symbols
The Hiring Path filters list has a symbol next to each filter.
The symbols are small circles.
The symbol helps to communicate what hiring path that symbol represents.
For example, the “Veterans” hiring path is a symbol
“Open to the general public” hiring path has a symbol.
Each Hiring Path filter will have a symbol.
The different job descriptions will also have Hiring Path symbols.
A job description may have more than one Hiring Path symbol; therefore, people of various backgrounds may qualify for the position.
You want to look at the Hiring Path symbol in the job description to see if you have a background that would allow you to qualify for the job position.
You do not want to waste your time applying for a job position when you do not have the right background to apply for the job.
For example, if a job position only has a “Veterans” Hiring Path Symbol, the job is qualified for veterans only. You do not want to waste time applying for the job if you are not a veteran.
The Federal Government has different federal remote job positions. You may find your next remote job with the federal government.
For those who may be interested, here are my current thoughts on my content calendar for 2025 for Live Your Life Learning.
Sort of outline of content for the next year.
The outline may change as we go through 2025.
The content calendar outlines the posting schedule for all content.
Content Calendar Organized by the week of the month
The content calendar is based on the week of the month.
Content for the different weeks are:
One week
Description of a Remote Job Opportunity or Internet Remote Resource Do a post on a remote job opportunity or Internet Remote Resource.
Second Week
Collection Deposit I am calling the posts that appear in the second week of every month “Collection Deposit.” These thoughts may help a person on a remote opportunity journey.
Third Week
Career Exploration The third week of posts centers on career exploration ideas to help people explore a career.
Fourth Week
Explore what (if any) remote opportunities may be in a particular economic sector in Omaha, Nebraska.
I will contact different organizations in a specific economic sector in Omaha, Nebraska, asking those organizations what (if any) remote opportunities those organizations may have.
Then, I will post the results of asking the organizations.
Extra Posts (as time allows)
Extra: Besides the post schedule listed above, I may also make additional posts as time allows. Some additional ideas are:
Interviews
I may do posts by interviewing people.
I have an interest in interviewing people.
Interviews could be with people in the remote opportunity field
I may also do interviews with people in other areas–just to interview people and learn more about them.
Current topics
Do posts on the remote industry — talk about the current topics in the remote opportunity area.
Here are some ideas about the type of content I plan to post on Live Your Life Learning and when I plan to post the content.
