Careers

This site profiles some of the occupations across the service industry sectors and the types of day-to-day tasks involved in the job. You'll also find video profiles of some of the occupations in each industry area.

Careers are generally viewed as the range of jobs that make up your working life. A career is usually made up of many different occupations, including full-time, part-time, casual and contract work, and even unpaid work.

Careers used to be thought of as following a straight line – the idea was that people worked their way to their ‘dream job’ through completing education and training, and being promoted at work.

These days, most people’s careers follow anything but a straight line! People are more likely to change jobs and industries, and head in new directions as their opportunities and expectations change. Some researchers suggest that new workers are likely to have from 12 to 25 jobs in up to five industry sectors in their working lives.

This means that your decisions about a ‘career’ don’t finish when you leave school and enter the workforce – it’s an ongoing process of making decisions about your next step. This also requires a constant process of learning - both informal work-based learning and formal education and training.

Planning your career isn’t a one-off process – most people find that they need to re-evaluate their career direction, and make additional decisions at several points in their working lives.

Most career sites – like this one – focus on individual occupations, which are the building blocks of a career. It’s up to you to decide what type of career you want to build.

The Job I Love, our careers guide to the service industries, is available for download below.