Jobs for the future - Video Recording Review

Professional School Counseling, June, 2003 by Carole W. Minor

Tour of Your Tomorrow (2nd ed.) by R. Feller & J. Vasos; Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service; 2001.

Tour of Your Tomorrow is a fast-paced, visually stimulating, upbeat look at occupations in the six interest areas used in the Harrington-O'Shea Career Decision-Making System-Revised (CDM). These areas correspond to Holland's six RIASEC types. Therefore, the tapes could be appropriately used as a follow-up to assessments based on either of these schemes or without a previous assessment, to provide some information about occupations in these areas.

Tour of Your Tomorrow is a boxed set of six video cassettes containing seven segments of approximately 7 minutes each. The first segment is an overview of occupations in the six interest areas and of career decision making in general. It provides a brief, but effective introduction to occupations in each of the areas. Each of the other segments describes and highlights occupations in a particular interest area. The interest areas described by the CDM and RIASEC fides are: crafts (realistic), scientific (investigative), the arts (artistic), social (social), business (enterprising), and office operations (conventional). Each of the segments also describes the characteristics of people in this group of occupations, what they like to do and don't like to do, what skills they like to use, the importance of the types of work they do, and the importance of lifelong learning in keeping current.

This set of tapes comes with a small pamphlet that is an effective user's guide. It includes the objectives, descriptions of how to use the Internet for further exploration, a brief synopsis of each tape, suggestions for preparing viewers for seeing the tapes, and follow-up activities.

These videos could effectively be used with individuals, groups, or classes from the middle school level through adults-in-transition, as suggested on the covers. Each segment is short enough, 7 minutes, to be within the attention span of a middle school student. It is also comprehensive and in-depth enough to be useful to a high school student, a college student, or an adult.

Each segment about an interest area is very positive about the importance of the work described in the video and includes the advice that finding success and satisfaction in an occupation is dependent on finding a good match between an individual's own personality patterns and strengths and appropriate occupations. Each segment also includes a strong emphasis on the importance of lifelong learning that enables individuals to keep current in their occupational fields. The number of individuals in very different jobs describing the importance of keeping up-to-date in their fields is quite effective.

Speaking of diversity, a significant effort has been made to present role models in nontraditional and traditional occupational roles for both males and females. There is also a significant representation of different racial and ethnic groups, primarily in non-stereotypic roles. There are equal numbers of males and females in the highlighted occupations, and equal numbers of white men and white women, black men and black women, and other women and men of color. About half the people in highlighted occupations and a quarter of the individuals in all occupations illustrated are people of color. Approximately half the occupations illustrated require a college degree, while half do not, but require training and the development of technical, office, or other skills.

The production values of these tapes are excellent; they are broadcast quality. The pictures are colorful and there is much variety in the locations of the jobs--from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange to a rural construction site. There is a good mix of voiceover explanation and the individual workers speaking to illustrate those comments. The pictures illustrate what is being described by the narrator.

While the tapes do not present information on occupational outlook or earnings in the occupations, that is a strength in videos such as these. Because that information is not presented, these tapes will remain current and usable longer and the current outlook and earnings are easily available on a number of Internet sites. In addition, the focus on lifelong learning in each segment emphasizes the idea that jobs change and that people have to continue to learn in order to be able to be productive on the job. Preparing students for the level of change they will experience in the workplace is one of the most challenging and most important tasks. These tapes do that well.

The over-all tone of these tapes is very upbeat and positive. All the people pictured or interviewed on the job are neat and appropriately dressed for their particular work settings. A person viewing them would have a positive impression of all the occupations described. If your purpose is to encourage students to explore occupations, using these tapes would be effective.

In summary, these tapes would easily engage the interest of someone from middle school through adulthood. They are very positive and present each occupational area as a desirable place to work. They provide a significant amount of information about occupations in a very short time and reinforce attitudes that are desirable in today's workplace. They are well produced and well edited. They would be an excellent resource for a middle-school classroom, or a high school, college, or community resource center.