This career planning guide is the first of a series on career decision making and the job search. Intended for use by students in career planning courses or by individuals with the help of a counselor, this book is an interactive introduction to the concepts of career choices and the importance of planning. Chapter 1 introduces the career decision-making process. Chapter 2 focuses on the changing world of work and trends in specific occupations and occupational groups. Chapter 3 discusses one's preferences in the world of work, occupational inventories, and inventories based on Holland's six types of personality/environment types. Chapter 4 discusses gathering information about occupational prospects and classifying occupations into groups. Chapter 5 discusses goal setting, achievement motivation, and identification of one's own achievements. Chapter 6 provides tools to identify, document, and prioritize one's preferred work abilities (skills and aptitudes). Chapter 7 focuses on identifying and prioritizing one's work values. Chapter 8 presents five methods for reducing the number of occupations on one's prospect list. Chapter 9 provides a decision-making matrix to enable one to put remaining occupations into an order of priority. Chapter 10 focuses on educational planning and reality testing one's career choice. Each chapter contains informational material, 1-15 exercises, summary, and list of references. An index is provided. A Student Activities book (not included here) may be useful in providing more space for writing when working on exercises and completed exercises can be removed easily and given to instructors or counselors for evaluation. (YLB)