Art Careers
How to Research Careers in Art
There are plenty of different types of art careers that exist, probably more than you realize. In fact, if you haven't actively researched your options, you've are likely missing out on some great career possibilities.
There are several good tools for researching art jobs. Two excellent tools you can use are the American O*Net and the Canadian NOC, which you can access for free online.
O*Net and the NOC provide information on all kinds of jobs, not just careers in art. They both have thorough information about a wide range of art jobs, and they can both be used to gather information about a variety of careers in art, to understand job opportunities that you may be qualified to pursue and to determine training and qualifications required for those jobs.
You can use O*Net or the NOC in a couple of different ways. You can search for information about a specific type of job, or you can browse all of the art careers that are listed on each site.
Searching for information about a specific type of job is helpful if you already have a specific art job in mind and you want to learn more about that job.
To search O*Net, go to the home page and enter a job title in the Occupation Quick Search box in the top right corner of the page. Find the result that best matches the job you are interested in, click on that link, and you'll be taken to a page with detailed information about that job.
To search the NOC, go to the home page and enter a job title in the Quick Search box at the top left of the page. Again, find the result that best matches the job you are interested in, click on that link, and you'll find in-depth information about that type of job.
Browsing art careers in the NOC or O*Net is helpful if you are interested in working in the arts but not sure what type of jobs are available. Both sites provide you with lists of jobs in the arts that you can review for inspiration and ideas about career options
To browse arts jobs on O*Net, go to Job Families: Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media
To browse art careers using the NOC, go to Occupations in Art, Culture, Recreation and Sport
Each link above will take you to a list of art careers. From there, simply browse through the list, and click on the links to any careers that are of interest to you to get more information about those jobs.
Remember, the information on O*Net is American, and the information on the NOC is Canadian. If you live outside the U.S. or Canada, the information on these sites can still give you basic information about art careers. However, wages, required qualifications, job outlook and other factors can vary from country to country. Ideally, you should be looking for labor market information that is as local as possible. To search for sites that are similar to O*Net or the NOC for countries other than Canada and the U.S., use a search engine and search for the keywords "labor market information" (or "labour market information", depending on where your live) and the name of your country or try the keywords "job descriptions" and the name of your country.
Once you've developed a short list of career options, I'd suggest thoroughly researching each option by conducting a few informational interviews. An informational interview is a meeting with a person who does the type of job you think you'd like to do. You ask for information about the job itself (you don't ask for a job in this type of interview).
People are usually nervous about setting up informational interviews, but these interviews are extremely helpful, and most people are willing to grant this type of interview. A job may seem great, but until you've talked to a couple of people who actually do the job, you won't really have a good understanding of the full scope of the job.
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