Employment and Test Prep Resources Available Through MCL Website

The MercerCounty Library System offers patrons a variety of resources geared to help them find career positions and employment possibilities, sharpen occupational and business skills, and prepare for a wide range of examinations and assessments to further their education or plan a career change. 

Ferguson’s CareerGuidance Center offers in-depth information for students and others seeking to explore career possibilities.  The database contains material on hundreds of career paths spread across sixteen industry groups.  In addition to descriptions of individual career responsibilities Ferguson’s provides background on educational, certification and licensing requirements, abilities and skills needed for success, and projections for growth in specific occupational areas.  The descriptive profiles for each occupational area introduce the reader to subdivisions within each occupational heading and what one can expect to find in the course of following that career path.  Information and guidance is available for conducting research on apprenticeships, internships, financial aid and other opportunities.

For someone at any age who is interested in pursuing leads for jobs, also found among our databases are Career Transitions and Job and Career Accelerator.  Patrons will find in Career Transitions analyses of occupational trends and what would be involved in moving into another career path.  Like Ferguson’s Career Guidance Center, Career Transitions offers the user the opportunity to take a career interest assessment that can help focus the search for a career.  An especially helpful feature of Career Transitions is a tool designed to help users match their experience to new careers.  There are suggestions for resumes and applications, and the chance to go through an interview simulation.  The home page for Career Transitions offers a ‘tour’ of the website to help users discover its features and use the database effectively.

Job and Career Accelerator is a very compact, well-designed database that contains valuable information on occupational fields, their composition and growth, entry requirements, and skill ranges.  Patrons can approach their job search by browsing through occupations for which there is a recognized demand at present and for the foreseeable future.  There is also a mechanism for searching for jobs based on job titles and descriptions, within specific geographic areas, and for particular categories of employers.   Job and Career Accelerator provides a wizard for the development of resumes and cover letters, complete with sample letters and resumes as guides.  Patrons can save their resumes on the site for easy access, and can keep track of steps in their individual job searches.  There are many helpful points presented on what to expect in the interview process and how to prepare for it.  Reference librarians are available to help explain the features of these databases and walk you through their processes.

Working in tandem with Job and Career Accelerator is Learning Express Library.  This database has an expanding collection of electronic books, online tutorials and practice exercises for computer operation, job qualification and placement, skill building, licensing exams and entrance tests.  Modules can be found for Law Enforcement and Firefighter test preparation, ASVAB and other military career test preparation, nursing test preparation, and Commercial  Driver’s License exam preparation.  (Another highly useful segment of the database covers student enrichment and test preparation, including college and graduate school entrance exams.)  Tutorials are available for learning all of the Microsoft Office programs, as well as the Adobe suite of programs. 

All of these resources are available within the library system, or from remote locations such as school, home or office, with the use of a library barcode number. 

And for those preparing for the NJ ASK battery of tests, the Library System offers the Lumos Learning practice sessions for all grades in all subjects.

- Jim S.