There are many things to consider when choosing a career. Professional career counselors explore some basic areas using a plethora of tools to help people make a choice that is right for them. By exploring these areas people match careers with their interests, values, goals, and career preferences. The Career Fitness Program (4th ed.), offers some insights into this process
When looking at a person’s interests it is important to look at the career theorist John Holland’s system of career inventories. Holland breaks interests into 6 types. Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. An individual would likely take an interest inventory, and would be assigned a three letter code based on the six different interest categories. These codes will help the individual search for careers that match their interest type. Thus, the person would actually have a job that is known to be interesting to people with matching Holland codes.
Exploring values is part of choosing a career. A value is a belief that challenges your thinking when you face conflict. Values are those things that often make us mull over our choices and struggle with decision making. Values come into play when we struggle to decide if furthering ourselves at our job is more important than spending time with the family. As a person learns what makes him/her happy; this knowledge effects the career decision making process.
Goal setting is extremely important in careers. An exercise used by career counselors is a goal sheet that examines where a person would like to be in 5 years, in 10 years, and at the end of their life. This helps to identify t he person’s needs through the lifespan. It is good to set long term goals for careers, and look at the small steps needed to accomplish these long term goals. Ultimately, the individual breaks the goal down into weekly objectives, or small tasks, that will move the career seeker to the ultimate long term goal.
Career preferences refer to the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator. This is a personality assessment tool used by corporations and counselors alike to determine preferences of a person’s nature. These include:
Extroverted vs. Introverted
Sensing vs. Intuition
Thinking vs. Feeling
Judging vs. Perceiving.
The MBTI (MyersBriggs Type Indicator), Developed by Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, might be administered to an individual to determine their 4-letter code. This code is helpful in determining which careers compliment an individual’s personality. The personality codes are researched thoroughly, and charts with least/most favored careers for each personality type are available. These help a person identify the career that is an essential match to their own personal traits.
Looking at different areas of our lives, and combining information about needs and desires are all part of this process called career development. It is important to take time and use the tools available through community colleges, guidance counselors, public employment agencies, and private career counselors. Career discovery, and personal discovery are interchangeable. Learning about what job will best suit your needs will most definitely yield information about personal growth. It is an exciting and demanding process that can bring forth life changing outcomes.
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