Jobs in Art

How to Research Careers in Art

There are more jobs in art than you probably know about. Discover two free and easy to use resources for researching careers in art.

There are several jobs in art that you may want to explore. Two resources, O*Net Online (for the United States) and the National Occupational Classification, also called the NOC (for Canada) are exceptionally good resources to help you start to research careers in visual arts.

Both of these resources list detailed information on thousands of jobs in all kinds of industries (not just careers in art). I will show you below how to browse through both tools to find listings of and information about plenty of different types of art jobs - many you probably have not even considered.

O*Net Online

How to Find Lists of Jobs in Art on O*Net Online

O*Net Online allows you to browse jobs in several different ways. Here's how to use this resource to browse careers in visual arts:

• From the O*Net Online home page, place your cursor over 'Find Occupations' near the top left corner of the page.
  
• A drop down menu will appear that will allow you to choose several ways to browse the job descriptions.
  
• If you are specifically looking for careers in art, try browsing by the following categories that are listed under 'Find Occupations':
  
  • Career Cluster - Click on Career Cluster from the drop down menu; this will take you to the main Career Cluster page. From the drop down menu on the Career Cluster page, select Arts, Audio/Video Technology and Communications. This will take you to a list of several different jobs in art.
    
  • Industry - Click on Industry from the drop down menu; this will take you to the main Industry page. From the drop down menu on the Industry page, select Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation. This will take you to a list of several different art jobs.
    
  • Job Family - Click on Job Family from the drop down menu; this will take you to the main Job Family page. From the drop down menu on the Job Family page, select Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media.

• Typical tasks you will perform and equipment you would work with in this job
  
• Knowledge, skills and abilities required to do the job
  
• Educational requirements to be hired in the field (under Job Zone)
  
• Interests, preferred work styles and work values of people who are successful in this type of job
  
• Related jobs and wages and employment trends
  
• Links to state-specific details about the job

National Occupational Classification - NOC

How to Find Lists of Jobs in Art on the NOC

The NOC lists jobs by categories, which makes it very easy to browse careers in visual arts in the NOC.

• The NOC uses a four digit code to classify all jobs. For example, the job graphic designer has a NOC code of 5241.
  
• In order to easily find careers in visual arts on the NOC, you really only need to understand the first number of the four digit code. The last three numbers are not important for our purposes.
  
• The first number in the NOC code refers to the skill type, or broad industry that a job fits into. Jobs that have a NOC code starting with 5 fall into the category Occupations in Art, Culture, Recreation and Sport (notice the graphic designer NOC code - 5241 - begins with a 5. This category is where you'll find jobs in art.
  
• One exception to this rule is management jobs. All management jobs begin with a 0. So if you're looking for management jobs in the arts, look for jobs with a NOC code beginning with 05 (0 for management and 5 for art, culture, recreation and sport).
  
• The easiest way to browse art jobs in the NOC is to go to the NOC code list. Scroll down until you see 051 Managers in Art, Culture, Recreation and Sport if you're looking for management jobs in art. Scroll a bit farther down until you see 5 Occupations in Art, Culture, Recreation and Sport for all other art related jobs.
  
• Simply click on any jobs that interest you to get more details.