Small Business Development Centers offer free business advising, mentoring, and training classes to help business owners improve management skills and business profitability.
SBDC services are available to all small business owners, with specialized programs for minorities, women, veterans, and others. There are more than 900 local SBDCs throughout the United States. The program is a collaboration of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), state and local governments, and private sector funding resources.
What kind of services do SBDCs offer?
SBDCs provide a broad range of services, depending on the needs of their local business community, usually including these:
Access free online training from the SBA on topics ranging from strategic marketing to business technology, crime prevention, government contracting, and loan preparation.
In honor of Labor Day 2023, celebrated on September 4, we’re celebrating the U.S. Department of Labor’s commitment to growing the U.S. economy by improving job quality, equity, and accessibility for all workers. The USDOL has more than two dozen internal divisions, focusing on everything from occupational safety to fair overtime pay.
One of those divisions—the Employment and Training Administration—is charged with “providing high-quality job training, employment, labor market information, and income maintenance services primarily through state and local workforce development systems.” To meet that charge, USDOL ETA oversees a variety of programs in every state to help workers achieve and maintain success. CareerOneStop offers easy-to-use finder tools to help you locate and contact ETA programs that you may qualify for.
Check out these tools to help your locate employment programs in your local area:
American Job Center Finder Nearly 2,300 AJCs nationwide offer free assistance to help people search for jobs, find training, and answer other employment-related questions.
Apprenticeship Office Finder Apprenticeships are a combination of on-the-job training and related classroom instruction in which workers learn the practical and theoretical aspects of a highly skilled occupation.
Employment Networks Finder If you receive Social Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Employment Networks can help you with free career counseling, job placement, and ongoing support once you have started working.
Farmworker Jobs Program Finder Services for migrant and other seasonally-employed farmworkers and their families, which include job training and other services to address employment-related needs.
Job Corps Center Finder Job Corps provides the all-around skills needed to succeed in a career and in life for eligible young people ages 16-24. Call (800) 733-JOBS or (800) 733-5627 or click the link above to find a program near you.
Native American Program Finder Employment and training services specific to Native American communities are aligned with the traditional cultural values and beliefs of the people they serve.
Older Worker Program Finder Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) helps subsidize part-time employment and training in community service positions so that older workers can move to unsubsidized, private-sector jobs.
ReEntry Program Finder ReEntry employment programs, often funded through USDOL ETA, offer employment and other assistance to those with a criminal record
Refugee Assistance Finder Refugee assistnace programs help refugees overcome barriers to employment.
WIOA-Eligible Training Program Finder WIOA provides retraining funding for laid-off workers who qualify for services. Funds may be used at education institutions on the WIOA-eligible training provider list shown in this map.
Youth Program Finder A variety of youth programs offer free job, career, and training assistance to individuals age 14 to 24..
Looking for a way to bypass the competition for job openings? Targeting a list of companies you’d like to work for is a proven effective job search strategy that puts you in the driver’s seat.
CareerOneStop’s Business Finder is a key tool to find prospective employers and target your search; it lets you look up essential information about local employers in your field or industry. Then you can initiate contact to explore potential openings and move beyond applying to posted positions along with many other applicants.
The Business Finder is an easily searchable database of more than 12 million businesses in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. It includes private businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations in the searched location.
You can search Business Finder by the name of a business, an industry, or a job title / occupation. You’ll find a brief business profile with street address, contact information, map, and links to the organization’s website, where available.
Although not all of the businesses you identify are currently hiring, you can use the contact information to reach out to the employer to ask whether they have current or planned job openings; explore their websites to learn about the organization and check for links such as “Employment”, “Careers”, or “Job openings”; and find basic information about competitors or suppliers to be ready for interview questions.
Give your search a clear focus
Use the search term options to your advantage, depending on your focus.
Business Name: If you know of a business or organization you may be interested in working for, enter the name to see details about the business. You can search using all or just part of a company’s name.
Industry: If you want to search for businesses in your current industry (such as health care, IT, communications, etc.) or an industry you’d like to move into, enter the name of the industry to find a list of related businesses.
Occupation: To find a list of organizations and businesses that typically hire people in your occupation, enter your job title. This method is especially helpful if you plan to remain in your current career.
To focus your search on a specific phrase, put quotes around the phrase, for example “Smith Electric” or “animal hospitals”.
Your results page provides a list of all employers that are related to your search term. You can download and save your list of businesses in Excel, PDF, Word, or RTF using the “Download” button at the bottom of your results list.
Some search terms will generate very long lists. Next, we’ll cover expert use of the Sort and Filter options to make your list of companies as meaningful and targeted as possible.
Organize your list for efficiency
Sorting allows you to organize your list of businesses in priority order for easier scanning. Each Sort category offers either alphabetical or High—Low sorting.
Business Name: Select this option to sort your list in alphabetical order. This is helpful if you are familiar with the names of specific companies in the area and want to find them quickly.
Description: This Sort provides a more finely-detailed breakdown of the types of organizations related to your search term, to help focus your search. For example, if you search for the occupation “Nursing Assistants”, sorting by Description organizes your list starting with Adult Care Facilities, Day Care Centers for Adults, etc. allowing you to focus on the specific type of facility you might want to reach out to.
Industry: This Sort option organizes your list of businesses by detailed categories within the industry you searched. For example, I might enter an industry such as “Banking” in my search, and sort by industry to find a category of banking I want to explore. Or if I enter an occupation as my search term, I can use Industry Sort to explore other industries that hire people in my field.
Employees: Select the Employees Sort feature, High to Low, to see the businesses with the largest number of employees first. Or choose Employees: Low to High to see the smallest employers first.
Distance: Choose Distance to order your list of businesses by distance from the location you entered. For example, if you use public transportation and prefer to focus your job search on the businesses closest to you, select Distance Low to High.
Narrow the options to what you most want to see
You can also narrow your list of results using the three available filters.
Description: Filter by Description to view a list of specific sub-categories of the types of organizations related to your search term, to help focus your search.
Industry: Use the Industry filter to select specific categories of the industries associated with your search term.
Employees: Filter by number of employees to narrow your list to the company size you’d like to explore. This can be a priority for many workers since company size can have a significant bearing on job satisfaction and growth. Some pointers on company size:
In general, larger companies are likely to have more openings, higher salaries, and more advancement opportunities. There’s usually more structure and established processes. Benefits such as insurance, tuition reimbursement, paid vacation, are often more well-established. But working for larger companies may also offer less opportunity to be creative, it’s often more difficult to get the notice of managers, and it can feel like you’re just a cog in the wheel rather than a valued team member.
Smaller companies often offer more of a sense of community and stronger relationships, more creative and entrepreneurial opportunities to put your own brand on your work. There’s often a greater variety of tasks in many positions. Smaller companies can provide a great environment for the start of your career, to learn a lot of different skills and aspects of the business. On the other hand, there are often fewer resources in small companies, so there can be less opportunity for advancement, fewer paid benefits, and less structure and policy guidance for the work.
Ready to target your job search like a pro? Explore the Business Finder now.
Do you think you may suffer from age discrimination in the job market? Hiring bias against any worker age 40 and older is illegal, but some job seekers still experience it. Be aware of these potential stereotypes so that you can address how you present and describe yourself.
Stereotype #1: When you have more experience, employers may assume you’re expensive to hire and retain.
Your plan: Research typical current wages to confirm that your salary requirements are appropriate. Be ready to communicate your enthusiasm and willingness to tackle the position offered, rather than a higher level position.
Stereotype #2: An employer may believe older workers have low energy and use more sick time.
Your plan: Cite your own attendance history if it’s strong. Communicate energy and engagement during your phone and in-person interviews through tone of voice, posture and carriage, handshake, clear focus, and by asking questions.
Stereotype #3: Some employers may think older people lack technology skills or will require extra training time.
Your plan: In your resume and interviews, note technology training and skills without overestimating them. If this is a weak area for you, explore training options in your community and online to expand your skills and get up to date.
Stereotype #4: Some employers think that older workers will leave the job sooner for retirement.
Your plan: Find a way to let prospective employers know that you are interested in working for a long time.
Stereotype #5: Some employers might think older workers cannot adapt to new workplace cultures or rules.
Your plan: Make it clear that you are comfortable with change and can follow protocol.
Interests are a great place to start your career planning. Whether you’re a student, a new graduate, or just want some direction for your career, interests are a helpful framework to generate career ideas that fit what you like to do.
The CareerOneStop Interest Assessment asks 30 questions about how interested you are in different activities. What if you’ve never had experience with the activity? In that case, just do your best estimate on your level of interest based on similar activities you have done.
The Interest Assessment is based on the Holland interest themes. This approach has been shown to accurately represent the career interests of people of diverse backgrounds. It also has proven reliability, meaning results will typically be consistent over time.
How do you interpret your results?
Once you complete answers to the 30 questions, you will see your results page. You can start to explore by selecting the link in the left corner “What do my results mean?”
You will see how your answers relate to the interest categories, and can read short descriptions of each. These six categories are collections of characteristics that describe people and careers. You’ll see your scores for each category, but we typically focus on your strongest 2-3 interests.
Think about how your 2-3 highest-scoring categories relate to activities you’ve chosen, school or work experiences that you’ve especially enjoyed, hobbies, volunteering, etc.
For example, let’s say your highest scores are the Social and Artistic categories. People who score high in Social often like to work with people to inspire, inform, help, train or cure them. Maybe you like to help friends and family, have a knack for teaching people, like to read inspiring stories, and think about work in health care.
Then for the Artistic theme, people who score high in this like to work in unstructured situations using their imagination and creativity. You may relate to that interest by appreciating variety and creativity in your work or school activities, bringing your original ideas to a project, or you may dance, play music, write, paint or draw.
Knowing your strongest career interests can help you recognize work and workplaces that you will like, find motivating, and tend to grow in. And these interests often last over your lifespan. Aim to spend some time in this section to get familiar with these ideas and ways to describe yourself.
What can you learn about your highest interest themes?
Here’s an example of one of the six career theme descriptions:
Investigative
People with Investigative interests tend to be logical, curious, precise, intellectual, and quiet.
You may like to:
Spend time thinking
Make observations
Seek scientific explanations
Learn new things for fun
Work independently
How do Investigative interests relate to careers?
Careers with Investigative interests involve using math, data analysis, researching scientific subjects, and studying human behavior. The detailed categories below describe aspects of Investigative interests you might use at work. Which do you relate to?
Detailed category
Example activities
Physical Science
Use computer models to forecast weather. Study stars, or chemical substances.
Life Science
Work in a biology lab, study genes. Explore impacts on wildlife habitats.
Medical Science
Research and develop new medical treatments. Study how to prevent diseases.
Social Science
Research social issues such as economics, culture, mental health, politics.
Humanities
Study and compare religious beliefs, history. Research influences on literature.
Mathematics/Statistics
Develop statistical models and conduct analyses. Expand knowledge in math fields.
Health Care Service
Provide medical treatment to patients and prescribe medication.
Getting your career matches
Back on your main results page, you’ll see the number of careers your scores match with. How are the matches made? The Interest Assessment makes a profile of both your likes and dislikes. Then it compares your profile to the characteristics of different careers, and the most similar matches are listed in your results.
You will see your Best matches first, in alphabetical order, followed by Great or medium matches, then Good / lower level matches.
Next is occupation title, basic job outlook (how strong the job market looks), median hourly wages (median shows the amount where half the people working in the job earn more, and half earn less), and education level that’s typically required to enter the field.
You can sort your results using the options in the “Sort by:” box at the top of results. Let’s say you want to see your career matches with the strongest outlook, choose “Outlook – high to low”. Or if you want to see your matches that have the highest wages presented first, choose “Hourly wages – high to low”.
Over on the left, you can use the experience or education filter to select your current or – if you’re a student – planned education level. For example, if you select Some preparation, your list will narrow down to show careers that require a high school diploma or less.
This is what the education filters mean:
Little or no preparation: shows careers that do not have formal education required – or where, only occasionally is high school diploma required
Some preparation: choose this filter to display careers that require a high school diploma or equivalent or occasionally a bit more education
Medium preparation: choose this filter to see careers that match your interests and that typically require some education after high school, such as a certificate program, up to a two-year associate’s degree.
High preparation: this filter shows your career matches that require a 4-year bachelor’s degree, and a few careers that have variable requirements that include a bachelor’s degree
Extensive preparation: this filter shows your career matchers that would typically require a graduate degree to enter, master’s or doctoral/professional degree.
Using the icons at the top of your results, you can print your results, email them, save them to your CareerOneStop account, or post to your social media. Scroll to the bottom, and you can download your results in different formats, and choose the number of results you want to show per page.
Now that you’ve gotten the most you can from your Interest Assessment results, you can explore your top career ideas by selecting their job title to see an Occupation Profile to learn all about them!
What if your results aren’t a fit?
What if you see some careers on your list that look weird, or that are just not your thing at all? This is likely to happen, because careers are complex and made up of many aspects. But you can expect that a number of occupations on your list make some sense for you, some should be in the ballpark of what you’d like to do, and a few are likely to be great ideas for you.
But some people find that they really disagree with their results. This is often a result of answering the questions differently than they actually feel, so try to answer based on what you genuinely like to do vs. answering as you think you should.
You can select “Back to results” and then select “Change answers” at the upper left if you want to adjust your responses. You will go back to the beginning but keep your original answers so you can just change the ones you want to reconsider.
Are you looking for talented, dedicated, enthusiastic employees? Or are you a returning citizen looking for job opportunities to take care of your family, pay your bills, and regain your life outside of incarceration?
Learn about the Federal Bonding Program and how it can benefit you, whether you are part of a business looking to hire employees or an individual looking to get hired.
Businesses looking for workers
The U.S. Department of Labor established the Federal Bonding Program in 1966 to provide Fidelity Bonds for “at-risk,” hard-to-place job seekers. The bonds cover the first six months of employment at no cost to the job applicant or the employer. And since 1966, dishonesty claims have been filed on only 1% of bonds.
Thousands of businesses have used the Federal Bonding Program successfully, in hospitality, retail, construction, transportation, auto repair, manufacturing, healthcare, non-profits, banking, tourism and more.
Businesses receive the FBP bonds free-of-charge as an incentive to hire difficult-to-employ applicants. Each FBP bond has a $5,000 limit with $0 deductible and covers the first six months of a selected individual’s employment.
If issues of dishonesty or fraud arise, employer assets are protected; there are no deductibles, so there are no out-of-pocket expenses should a loss occur. Bonds can be applied to any job, for any full- or part-time employee, including those hired by temp agencies.
If you’re in the job market and want a boost for your job applications, the Federal Bonding Program can help. Employers need workers, and with 600,000 returning citizens leaving incarceration each year in the U.S., justice-involved workers represent a major potential workforce.
The FBP can provide fidelity bonding to employers for the first six months of your employment. This provides reassurance to them that their potential risk is covered by up to $5,000, should there be any issues around dishonesty or fraud.
Did you know that starting an apprenticeship program can help you meet your recruitment, training, and retention needs? Read on to learn more about Registered Apprenticeships.
What is a Registered Apprenticeship Program?
Registered Apprenticeship is an industry-driven, high-quality career pathway where employers can develop and prepare their future workforce, and individuals can obtain paid work experience, receive progressive wage increases, classroom instruction, and a portable, nationally-recognized credential. Registered Apprenticeships are industry-vetted and approved and validated by the U.S. Department of Labor or a State Apprenticeship Agency.
RAPs enable and energize more employers to participate and provide them access to larger talent pools that have been trained for entry-level to management positions, thereby meeting industry demands and reducing unemployment rates across the country.
Key elements of all Registered Apprenticeship programs include the following:
Industry Led – Programs are industry-vetted and approved to ensure alignment with industry standards and that apprentices are trained for highly skilled, high-demand occupations.
Paid Job – Apprenticeships are jobs! Apprentices earn progressive wage as their skills and productivity increase.
Structured On-the-Job Learning/Mentorship – Programs provide structured on-the-job training to prepare for a successful career, which includes instruction from an experienced mentor.
Supplemental Education – Apprentices are provided supplemental classroom education based on the employers unique training needs to ensure quality and success.
Diversity – Programs are designed to reflect the communities in which they operate through strong non-discrimination, anti-harassment, and recruitment practices to ensure access, equity, and inclusion.
Quality & Safety – Apprentices are afforded worker protections while receiving rigorous training to equip them with the skills they need to succeed and the proper training and supervision they need to be safe.
Credentials – Apprentices earn a portable, nationally-recognized credential within their industry.
How much does your introversion or extroversion preference affect your career choices? The short answer is: it probably depends a lot on how strong your preference is.
If you thrive with lots of people around you, frequent changes, do OK with noise and lots of activity, you may be drawn to work environments that support extroverts. Or if you concentrate much better in a quiet spot, with maybe a couple of co-workers around, few interruptions and consistency, you may relish work environments that are geared for introverts.
According to a popular personality assessment, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), people tend to naturally feel energized by very different situations. Those who have an Introversion preference gain energy more from either spending time alone and going in deep on one or a few activities, while people who score higher on Extraversion (MBTI uses a different spelling) are energized more by being around other people and doing a wide variety of activities.
While the MBTI has been around a long time and has been used in many work and education settings, a number of academic researchers do not endorse it. Nevertheless, most people readily identify more with either an introversion or extroversion preference.
For some, these are mild preferences and they can accommodate either style. But if these differences speak to your ability to thrive in a workplace, it could be helpful to explore your MBTI type preference further.
In addition to personality preferences, work values, your likes and dislikes, and your skills, can help identify an appropriate career match for you. It’s also important to learn what a typical day is like on the job, what a career pays, the type of training required, and whether jobs are likely to be available.
To get a sense of which careers may fit you, check out some of these career exploration resources on CareerOneStop.
Explore our collection of career videos on hundreds of different types of work. Select a category to view a list of related career videos. Videos include details such as typical tasks people do in that occupation, the kinds of work settings that jobs might be available in, the typical education you’ll need to enter the field, and more.
Learn about broad career areas from the career clusters. Career clusters are groups of related types of work. They give you an easy way to explore different kinds of jobs within one broad category. Start with one of the clusters—like health care or construction—to learn what it involves, current trends, and the different careers it offers
A career profile is a great place to start your career research. You can learn a basic description of that type of work, learn what it pays in your state, find out how in-demand it’s likely to be in the coming decade, learn what education and training you’d need to qualify, and more. Based on what you find out, you may be able to rule in some careers, and rule some out, too.
Need to advise customers and clients about employment demand and typical wages? Want a better understanding of your state and local job market? CareerOneStop offers easy-to-use tools and information to help you learn about employment trends so that you can advise your students and customers.
Check out any of these tools to learn more:
What’s hot? Career reports Find out which occupations in your state are: growing the fastest; have the most openings; provide the largest employment; pay the most; and are declining most rapidly. Reports include details about employment, wages, and education.
2. Salary Finder Use this tool to find salary information for more than 800 different occupations. Helpful to get an idea of appropriate salary ranges to negotiate for, as well as to learn typical earnings to expect in your local area for a given occupation.
3. Largest Employers Large organizations often hire a number of employees in a variety of positions, on an ongoing or seasonal basis. Learn which 150 organizations in your state employ the greatest number of people.
4. Business Finder To find detailed information on more than 12 million employers in the U.S., just enter a keyword to search. You can find local organizations that employ people in a particular occupation, industry, or to research a specific business. You can narrow your results by number of employees, description, industry, or location. Select an employer name to see a brief profile with street address, contact information, map, and links to their website, where available.
Explore their websites to learn about the organization, and check for current job openings – usually listed under links named “Employment”, “Careers”, or “Job openings”. This is a great tool for targeted job searches, or to expand your list of potential partners or employers to reach out to for job development, as well as to scan to learn about businesses in your local area.
5. Occupation Profile Select any career title to read details such as typical tasks, pay, education needed, and demand. You can learn about the occupation’s employment projections in your state and nationally for a 10-year stretch, and see typical wages for your local metropolitan area, state, or the U.S.
6. What’s in demand? There are a lot of opportunities for job seekers in the current job market. There are now more jobs in the United States than there were before the pandemic.
So where exactly are the jobs? See monthly updates to get a quick scan of the national job market: how many jobs have been added in the previous month, key industries that are hiring, and how to learn more about those industries on CareerOneStop.
7. Employment Patterns You can look up a job title or occupation to see which industries are most likely to have hiring needs for that job . Employment Patterns shows the name of industries that employ the most people in any of 800 different types of work. While data are national, this tool is especially powerful paired with the Business Finder to help you point job seekers toward a variety of appropriate employers in your area for their field.
Did you know that CareerOneStop.org offers a variety of free, open-access resources for career, training, and job search? Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, CareerOneStop offers simple, streamlined tools and websites for the public to access up-to-date job, labor market, and career information.
Check out these resources to see which might help your patrons—they’re all free and require an account or password (though users can easily create an optional free user account so they can save information and preferences).
The Job Finder allows users to search job postings, updated daily from several sources, in any U.S. location.
The Resume Guide provides a step-by-step plan for how to create an effective resume. It includes tips and samples, as well as advice for job seekers on how to market their resumes and themselves.
The Skills Matcher helps career changers identify new careers that might use their current skills and work experience. Users rate their levels on 40 key workplace skills, and get a list of careers that match their ratings.
The Occupation Profile lets career explorers create customized reports for any of nearly 900 occupations, including national and state data on wages, employment, knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), education and training, and links to more resources.
The Salary Finder helps job seekers research median wages for occupations. They can use that information to inform their career planning, focus their job search, or prepare for interviews or job offer negotiations.
The Business Finder includes a searchable database of nearly 12 million U.S. employers. Job seekers can use it to explore their local business community and plan for informational interviews.
The American Job Center Finder, which locates the closet American Job Center. Nearly 2,300 AJCs located across the United States provide free employment assistance to the public.
CareerOneStop also offers specialized information on these websites:
Veterans ReEmployment is a one-stop resource for career, training, and employment assistance for veterans and transitioning service members.
Job Search Help for Ex-Offenders offers information, tips, and resources specifically for job seekers with criminal convictions.
We’d love to hear your feedback if you use any of CareerOneStop’s resources with your job seekers, and we’d also love to know what other job search resources you use. Leave us a comment below, or, if you’ll be attending ALA 2023 in Chicago, come by and visit CareerOneStop at Booth 1611!
