my colorado journey career cluster survey

For Adult Job Seekers

Colorado Applies Month (CAM) connects with My Colorado Journey (MCJ) to guide you through selecting an education or training option that’s best for you – from applying to a program to help getting financial aid.

What will I do during CAM?

Participate in self-guided activities to gain insight and create an action plan! My Colorado Journey will assist you as you explore, chart, and execute your career and education plans.

Find careers I will love

Take the Career Cluster Survey and a soft skills assessment to match your interests and skills to career possibilities. Explore key Colorado industry career pathways and look at salaries and qualities of careers including what education and training you need to be successful in careers of interest.

Scope out my education options

Look at the range of education and training options, including whether your career choice may need licensure through the state. Pick one of the education or training options to take a deeper dive into what each requires; certificate, two- or four-year degree, military service, apprenticeship or direct to work.

Connect career choices to education and training programs

Translate the education or training option that is most appealing and fits your career choice to looking at program options; in colleges, technical schools, boot camps and more. You can also take a look at the return on investment for various programs that Colorado colleges offer.

Complete my application

Now that you have determined which education or training option is a best fit and looked at programs various institutions offer, it’s time to select one or more institutions and complete your applications.

Find and apply for my financial aid

Depending on the type of program you choose, you can complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), Colorado Application for State Financial Aid (CASFA) or visit your local workforce center to look into Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding to help finance your education or training. There are scholarships available for adults as well.

My Colorado Journey will guide you as you explore, chart and execute your career and education plans.

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My Colorado Journey

Geared toward high school and college students in the state of Colorado, this site can be accessed fully by creating an account with any .edu e-mail address. It contains practical guides to college planning and financial aid, as well as major and career exploration exercises. Along with this, there are free test-prep materials included. There are also resources provided to students in middle school, and some for career transitioning adults. Visit their website to start your account today.

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Career interests, related resources.

U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)

Starting a business isn’t easy. Find resources and guidance with the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA).

Dress for Success Guide (CSU Career Center)

Put your best foot forward… or your best outfit forward with this guide on how to dress for interviews.

Affordable Colleges Online

Want to earn a master’s degree on your own time? Visit Affordable Colleges Online to view the opportunities available for you.

CSU Career Checklist

Want to see if you are on track to meet your career goals? Check this handout of year by year best practices to help you ensure life after graduation is the best it can be.

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Get Connected to Careers, Education and Resources

My Colorado Journey connects job seekers and students to careers, education planning and support resources through a guided process that drives action and goal completion. Start your journey today!

• JOB SEEKERS
• PROFESSIONALS

A career is a journey. Discover new paths and tools to prepare for a competitive career.

My Colorado Journey connects job seekers of all ages to transformational work and education opportunities. This powerful platform makes job and career planning easy and personalized by suggesting actions based on your ambitions and stage of life. Map out the steps to accomplish your goals, whether you want to land a new job or find a training program near you.

Design your path to success by exploring education and training opportunities to help you achieve your goals.

My Colorado Journey makes life planning easy and personalized. You can select goals and actions based on your ambitions and chart a path to achieve them. My Colorado Journey empowers you to choose a career and education path that’s unique to you—your interests, your talents and your dreams.

Learn how My Colorado Journey can help you better serve your clients and students.

My Colorado Journey connects adults, families and students to transformational career, education and training opportunities as well as state resources and benefit programs. By reducing duplication of state tools and services, My Colorado Journey saves everyone time, money and resources. Nothing replaces your expertise, so My Colorado Journey makes it easy for you to walk alongside adults and students as they use the platform. Make recommendations, view reports, and help turn action steps to success.

My Colorado Journey Resources

Learn more about my colorado journey.

My Journey Blog Series: Exploring My Tools

Next for the My Journey 4-year anniversary launch blog series, let’s explore the My Tools functionality. 

In My Journey, My Tools helps users achieve their personal, education and career goals by completing Outcomes, Goals and Steps. 

Currently, there are multiple different tools available in My Tools, and clients can choose which Tools they want to make available to their users. These tools have different intended purposes to drive users to Outcome completion.

Some of the tools available via My Journey are:

• The PAIRIN Essential Skills Survey
• Drivers widget for The PAIRIN Essential Skills Survey
• Target widget for The PAIRIN Essential Skills Survey
• Career Clusters Survey
• Occupation Finder
• Program Finder
• ROI/EdReturns Tool
• Community Catalog

The PAIRIN Essential Skills Survey: The PAIRIN Essential Skills Survey is a globally recognized tool for evaluating more than 100 work-related skills, behaviors and mindsets that contribute to success in specific occupations. The survey takes just 10 minutes to complete. Programs can identify strengths, gaps and opportunities for growth over time, ultimately aiding individuals in achieving success in their chosen field. 

Drivers Widget: Drivers are a set of 15 commonly perceived needs that “drive” human nature. Certain drivers are more intense in some people than in others. After users take The PAIRIN Essential Skills Survey, their top drivers are displayed for them to read and learn about in the Drivers Widget tool. After drivers are defined,  personalized workflows can be recommended to help the user turn up or down their drivers. Identifying one’s drivers allows users to understand where they pull motivation from and define their best approach to accomplishing a task at hand.

Target Widget: Based on the results of The PAIRIN Essential Skills Survey, the Career Launch Target helps users understand the skills in which they are strongest and which they need to improve relative to launching their career. It displays a graphical overview plus offers specific insights and tips to easily identify areas for growth. This conveys a path for users to become better equipped for specific jobs and career development.

Career Clusters Survey: The Career Cluster Survey is a widely used tool for helping individuals narrow down their interests among over 1,000 occupations listed in O*NET by aligning them with Career Clusters, which are groups that contain occupations in the same field of work that require similar skills. PAIRIN rebuilt the survey to provide an intuitive, mobile-friendly experience that injects fun and encouragement into the process. This is particularly helpful for users with limited work experience, who may find the career exploration process daunting. Users can gain a better understanding of which career paths align with their interests and skills. The results of this survey are automatically recorded in the system.

Occupation Finder: This function discovers occupations that use a participant’s essential skills, hard skills parsed from their resume, and their interests to align them to a given occupation. Users can explore and learn about potential career paths by filtering and sorting through more than 1,000 occupations by recommended education level, Career Cluster, salary and previously saved occupations.

Program Finder: Program Finder allows users to discover programs based on keyword, location, type, format and/or status on the Eligible Training Provider List. Users can browse available programs from traditional colleges and universities, community colleges and other training providers. The Program Finder displays certificate and training programs from Peterson’s national database, the preeminent source for education data, containing more than 180,000 programs. Participants can also move from the Program Finder to the Occupation Finder to see which occupations align to their program of choice. 

ROI/EdReturns Tool: EdReturns is a salary and education investment comparison tool that allows users to calculate earnings minus program costs. With this tool, users can make an informed decision on the next step in their education and career development. Comparing program benefits to program cost shows users a clear understanding of how much they would need to invest for certain programs in the future.

My Resume: Using AI technology, users can tailor their resumes and cover letters for different job opportunities. The AI tool prioritizes skills, work history, certificates, etc. for the user-selected job and displays top missing and matching skills based on that job description. This tool uses easy-to-follow, step-by-step resume building instructions along with ATS-friendly resume templates. The resume draft also allows career counselors and coaches to give individuals online comments and feedback. Overall, this tool provides users multiple resources to best tailor resumes and cover letters to a specific job. 

Community Catalog : This highly configurable and flexible tool facilitates referrals for users to discover programs and opportunities including workshops, courses, job openings and other resources to aid in career development in their community. 

All of the Tools in My Journey are designed to simplify a complicated career search process in a one stop shop on a single platform.

PAIRIN’s client Michael Vente from the Colorado Department of Higher Education spoke on My Tools saying, “Increasing the number of Coloradans benefiting from valuable career skills that enable increased lifetime earnings is a central goal of the education and workforce ecosystem in Colorado. My Journey’s tools help make this a reality – especially the EdReturns tool. Value and return on investment in higher education, available in the EdReturns tool, plays an important role in equipping all Colorado learners with the information they need to succeed throughout their education, training and career exploration journeys.”

Overall, My Tools provides self-guided support to users as they take charge of their career and education journeys. We hope you have enjoyed learning more about My Journey’s nine different My Tools. Stay tuned for the next article in this My Journey blog series where we will feature My Referrals.  

Want to talk more?

Recent Posts

• Workmorphis Podcast Features PAIRIN’s Dr. Shannon Block
• Michael Simpson Featured on the Darius Gant Podcast
• PAIRIN Named Among Built In’s Best Places to Work in the U.S.A.
• Q&A With Shannon Block: PAIRIN’s Newest Team Member And New Chief Strategy Officer
• Former Denver Zoo, Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers CEO joins tech startup as chief strategy officer

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Designed to help you identify career interests, values, and skills, this assessment provides a key link between you and the occupational information databases.