TAFE Options

What is TAFE Options ?

TAFE Options is a tool designed to help you explore your career, job and education options in a way that is practically useful. It aims to prompt you with questions about the kind of direction that suits where you now in much the same way that career counsellor does. It is not a psychological career profiling tool though we, at TAFE Options strongly urge you to make full use of those tools.

What's different about TAFE Options ?

Fast, simple, highly interactive and responsive.

Designed to be like a search engine, TAFE Options asks you a question and shows you a list of jobs that make sense, given your answer. So, you may be asked whether you mind shift work. If you answer definitely no then the jobs that don't require shift work are shown at the top of the list of jobs you might be interested in. You drill down into any job in the list to explore further, or answer another question and see the list change.

Career path advice – expert knowledge of job opportunities

If I were to train to become a cook, what could I do after that ? You could train further and work as a specialist cook, as a chef, a restaurant manager, a TAFE teacher or a confectioner. This is the kind of knowledge a career counsellor or industry expert has about lots of jobs and could help you decide whether to train as a cook now. At TAFE Options, we have captured that knowledge and display it along with lots of other information about a job.

Business path advice – expert knowledge of job opportunities

If were to train as a mechanic, what businesses would that help me run ? For example, if I were a mechanic, what business or self employment opportunity can I do ? A career counsellor may tell you that you could look for school bus contracts where you use your mechanical skills to maintain your own bus. At TAFE Options, we have captured the kind of knowledge about businesses opportunities.

But will I ENJOY the job ?

I may be perfectly suited to being a baker in that I like physical work, am reliable, can manage schedules, use maths and so on. However, I would not enjoy working as a baker at all because I have to start work early in the mornings. Similarly, I may have all the skills, attitudes and interests to make me a great bartender, but I really, really, don't want to work on weekends. Factors that are key to whether I might enjoy a job are known only to people who intimately know the job. At TAFE Options, we have captured this knowledge from industry experts and career counsellors.

How big is the gap between skills I have now and skills I need for a job ?

I may be perfectly suited to be a brain surgeon and would enjoy this job very much, but from where I am now, training to be a brain surgeon is simply not going to happen. TAFE Options presents you with a short self-assessment questionnaire so that you can rate yourself on key skills for a job you are interested in. TAFE Options will give you an indication of which skills you need to train up on in order to do the job you want.

Are there job vacancies available for the job that I am interested in ?

I am perfectly suited to being a fisherman, I would enjoy this and love the career and business prospects ? However, I live so far away from the sea and there are so few jobs advertised that I might keep looking for something else. At TAFE Options, we provide a link to the JobSearch page with the job you are interested in so that, with one click, you can see what vacancies are available now. While you are there you can also see the job outlook information that JobSearch has for most jobs.

Okay, but what course do I have to do to train for the job I like ?

TAFE Options gives you a list of courses associated with each job. Have a look at details of a course and which training providers offer the course.

What can I expect from TAFE Options ?

TAFE Options works in a different way to other career advice web sites and questionnaires. Other approaches to career advice ask you a series of questions to gauge your personality type of key characteristics that will make you well suited to certain jobs. After answering all the questions, the jobs you are suited to are presented. Usually, there is a very good personality or psychological model underpinning this approach and the jobs recommended are usually spot on. At TAFE Options, we strongly urge you to explore these approaches - a very good one is MyFuture at www.myfuture.edu.au. TAFE Options, works by helping you to browse jobs. Sure, as you answer questions, the jobs that appear at the top of the list should be ones you that suit you the most but we won't promise this. The idea is to look at jobs that look interesting, drill down and find out more about them, leap across to a related job, find out more about that, go back a few questions and answer them differently and see what bobs up

Who deleveloped TAFE Options ?

The Office of Tertiary Education and Training (OTTE) asked the University of Ballarat to develop a fast, interactive, practically useful career site for people of all ages and work backgrounds. The University of Ballarat used a type of program that is called a knowledge based system, where knowledge that career counsellors. and industry experts have is captured and built into a web site. The specialist knowledge based system company JustSys Pty Ptd was asked to build the knowledge base. Permian Pty Ltd was asked to manage the project and i4Talent Pty Ltd developed specialized reports and other bits and pieces from their human resource management programs. A highly talented team of University of Ballarat designers and programmers built the web site and integrated the knowledge based system and reports.

The Team

Back Row from left: Wayne Hurst, Andrew Stranieri, Sid Morris, Owen Hatchard, Cameron Foale, Nial Muecke, Adam Hassall, Peter Damen, Robert Bateman, John Yearwood
Seated from left: Stephen Mabbs, John Avery, Glen Rabie, Michelle O'Brien. Absent Michelle Burns

In addition to those who participated in the development of this web site, another group of people volunteered their time. This group evaluated the knowledge models, conducted user testing on the completed system and provided invaluable feedback that assisted in further development of the system and feedback to OTTE management. A very special thanks to the following groups of people:

Curriculum Maintenance Managers

 Others