Nursing

Introduction

Did you know that there are over 2 million job titles and over 900 industries in Canada? That is a lot of possible career options! Understanding the Canadian economy and the types of jobs that are available is one of the best ways to begin your career search.

Students often report feeling limited by their degree choice and worry that they may not have many viable career options. Although your degree can point you in a career direction, it will not necessarily determine the type of job you can pursue. Unlike many college programs, your undergraduate degree is not intended to train you for one specific job. Some students may feel frustrated by this, but the great news is that your degree opens up many more opportunities than you may think!

Employers today are looking for graduates with transferable skills and people who have a sense of where they fit into the world of work. Because of this, it is really important to think beyond your degree when making a career decision. You want to consider all of your interests, the skills you would like to use, what fits with your personality, and the values that you have.

Determining your career path requires a lot of research, both personal and occupational. It's almost impossible to make a career decision if you haven't invested time in both of these things. This section will get you started and will showcase some popular industries and occupational areas related to your degree.

Educational Services

The Educational Services sector comprises establishments that provide instruction and training in a wide variety of subjects. This instruction and training is provided by specialized establishments, such as schools, colleges, universities, and training centers. These establishments may be privately owned and operated for profit or not for profit, or they may be publicly owned and operated. They may also offer food and/or accommodation services to their students.

Educational services are usually delivered by teachers or instructors that explain, tell, demonstrate, supervise, and direct learning. Instruction is imparted in diverse settings, such as educational institutions, the workplace, or the home, and through diverse means, such as correspondence, television, the Internet, or other electronic and distance-learning methods.

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Healthcare Services

The health-care industry provides diagnostic, healing, rehabilitation, and preventive services. The individual physician is often the consumer's (or patient's) primary point of contact with the system. However, it is the health-care organization itself-that is, the hospital or health management organization (HMO)-that finances much of the industry today; it represents the preponderance of the physician's revenues.

Many people are attracted to the health-care industry for its human touch and service-oriented aspects. People are living longer and thus demand more and higher quality preventive and long-term care. The demand for health-care workers is expected to grow faster than the average rate for all occupations

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Marketing

Marketing is the process of communicating the value of a product or service to customers. Marketing might sometimes be interpreted as the art of selling products, but sales is only one part of marketing. As the term "Marketing" may replace "Advertising" it is the overall strategy and function of promoting a product or service to the customer.

From a societal point of view, marketing is the link between a society’s material requirements and its economic patterns of response. Marketing satisfies these needs and wants through exchange processes and building long term relationships. The process of communicating the value of a product or service through positioning to customers. Marketing can be looked at as an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, delivering and communicating value to customers, and managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its shareholders.

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Nursing

Nursing is one of the most noble professions in our society and currently there are far more nursing jobs than there are those qualified to fill them. It's one of the most noble positions any of us can choose as a career. It requires a certain mindset and of course, there are educational requirements that must be met and vary according to your specialty.

Nurses can choose a level of specialty, such as those working with medical teams that research certain diseases or nurses who are specifically trained to provide not only care for terminal patients, but their families as well. Many nurses prefer a classroom setting and become nursing instructors while others become critical care nurses or pediatric nurses.

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Public Relations

Public relations is the practice of getting attention and shaping public opinion. Its tools include publicity, advertising, public affairs forums, lobbying public officials, and any and every other means that gets a message out to the public. Mostly however it is about placing stories in the media, getting newspapers, radio and television to accept stories or messages sourced from PR agencies.

Every organisation that interacts with other agencies may be said to engage in public relations. Organisations by and large wish to project as good an image as they can, and often wish to communicate a particular message.

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Social Services

Social services is a professional and academic discipline that seeks to improve the quality of life and wellbeing of an individual, group, or community by intervening through research, policy, community organizing, direct practice, and teaching on behalf of those afflicted with poverty or any real or perceived social injustices and violations of their human rights.

Research is often focused on areas such as human development, social policy, public administration, psychotherapy, program evaluation, and international and community development. Social workers are organized into local, national, continental and international professional bodies. Social work, an interdisciplinary field, includes theories from economics, education, sociology, medicine, philosophy, politics, anthropology, and psychology. In many jurisdictions, clinical social workers are licensed mental health professionals.

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Other Industries

This section has highlighted a number of popular industries and job titles that align with your academic program; however, it was by no means an exhaustive list of all the possible options available to you with the degree you possess. Access the resources below to learn about other industries and job titles that are a fit for you.

Canadian Industries: Browse through over 900 Canadian Industries.

LinkedIn: Search through thousands of Western Alumni by degree.

National Occupational Classification (NOC): The national reference on occupations - organizes over 40,000 job titles.

Informational Interviews: Find out about jobs and career paths you never knew existed.

CareerCruising: Peruse career & further educational options (visit the "Resources" section of CareerCentral for the username & password).

Working in Canada: The leading source for labour market information in Canada.

US Occupational Outlook Handbook: Browse hundreds of occupational profiles.