The ASVAB Career Exploration Program (CEP) provides high quality career exploration and planning materials at no cost to high schools or students throughout the country.
The CEP encourages students to explore a wide variety of careers in line with their interests and skills. While the program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, this career exploration tool is for every student, 10th grade and up (ages 16 to 23), not just those interested in the armed forces.
Schools authorize whether or not student information is released to the military, and civilian education services specialists who have no recruiting function administer the program. Eighty-seven percent of students who participate in the ASVAB program aspire to a career field outside of the military, with 60 percent reporting they plan to continue their formal education after high school.
The aptitude battery portion of the CEP covers eight content areas, including science, word knowledge, mathematics and mechanical comprehension. By assessing a students’ ability to learn new skills, this portion of the program measures knowledge and abilities in common workplace proficiency areas. After the aptitude battery portion of the program is administered, Jennifer Kennedy, ASVAB’s education service specialist for Maine, returns to schools to explain students’ scores during a one-hour workshop. Additionally, she will walk the students through the “Find Your Interests (FYI)” interest inventory, which contains 90 questions based on John Holland’s widely accepted Theory of Career Choice. Once students complete the FYI, they have three interest codes to use with the career exploration tool, which lists more than 400 occupations by interest and skill area.
Over 4,000 students in Maine and Eastern New Hampshire and more than 650,000 students in 68 percent of schools nationwide participated in the ASVAB during the 2011-12 school year. For more information about the ASVAB Career Exploration Program, and to schedule the ASVAB program to be administered at your school in 2012-13, please email Jennifer Kennedy, or call her at 1-800-323-0513.
If you have any comments or questions, please forward them to Edwin Kastuck, and they will be addressed in the forthcoming article about ASVAB in a September Commissioner’s Update.
Resources and more information
- ASVAB CEP Fact Sheet (PDF)
- Edwin Kastuck
Maine Department of Education
624-6776
Edwin.Kastuck@maine.gov - Jennifer Kennedy
Program Manager
ASVAB Career Exploration Program
1-800-323-0513
Jennifer.Kennedy2@mepcom.army.mil
Most of the links in this article do not open and the contact email at the bottom bounces back as incorrect.
See Sec. 6-2 a: http://www.usarec.army.mil/im/formpub/rec_pubs/p350_13.pdf
6-2. “Purpose Within the United States Army Recruiting Command (USAREC), ASVAB is designed to: Provide the field recruiter with a source of leads of high school seniors and juniors qualified through the ASVAB for enlistment into the Active Army and Army Reserve.”
Gross violation of student privacy to authorize schools to release their data to military recruiters. No mention of Option 8, which blocks the release. Students and parents: know your rights!