South Dakota e-Labor Bulletin

April 2025

Tools for Choosing the Right Career

Spring 2025 high school and college graduates are likely being asked, “What’s next?” Even when we’re little, people ask, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” That question is more important than it seems—it’s connected to the job market. People entering the job market are the supply to fill open jobs (demand).

To help people choose the right career, the Labor Market Information Center offers free online tools that anyone can use. No username or password needed! These tools were recently updated so they reflect the current work world.

Start by Learning About Yourself

Before choosing a career, it’s important to understand what makes you you—like your interests, personality, skills, and values. A great place to start is the South Dakota Career Interest Survey (SDCIS). This simple survey helps you figure out what types of work match your interests. It’s available as a PDF or Excel file on our website. The Excel file records your responses and self-scores. The PDF includes instructions for scoring. In either version, you rate how much you’d enjoy doing 108 different work activities. Then, your results show which of six interest areas fit you best:

Realistic
Enterprising
Artistic
Social
Investigative
Conventional

These are called the REASIC areas (based on John Holland’s career theory). You’ll get the most out of your results by exploring careers in your top three interest areas—but you can look at more if you want to.

Explore Careers That Match Your Interests

With your survey results, visit our Exploring Occupations of Interest page. Pick one of your top interest areas, and you’ll see a list of careers in that category. Click on any occupational title to see details about that occupation in South Dakota. Covered are what workers do, how much they earn, projected outlook, education needed, and jobs open now.
You can also click on the linked code to the right of each occupational title to learn even more through O*Net, a national website. O*Net gives details like what skills are needed, what tasks are involved, and job outlook across the country.

Explore by Career Cluster Too

Another great way to explore careers is by career cluster. These are broad groups of similar occupations, like Construction, Healthcare and Human Services, or Marketing and Sales. South Dakota’s Department of Education uses these clusters to help students plan for their future. We’ve updated our career cluster resources to match the new National Career Cluster Framework, so students and job seekers can now explore occupations in the 14 new clusters.

Just like the interest area page, you can click on a cluster (like Construction) to see a list of occupations in that group. Then, click on a title or code to learn more about it at the state or national level.

Ready to Start Exploring?

Whether you’re a student, a parent, or someone thinking about a new career path, we invite you to explore these free online tools:

There’s no “right” or “wrong” career choice—but the more you know, the better your decision will be. As the saying goes, “Don’t wait for opportunity to knock—go out and give it directions!”

Marcia Hultman

Cabinet Secretary