by Beverly Baskin

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, the reader learned what career counseling will do for all four types of clients [The Exploratory Client (ages 17-27); The 30s Transition Client (ages 28-39); The Mid-life Client (ages 39-52); and The Pre-Retirement and Retirement Client (ages 52-75)]. Career Counselors begin with an Initial Interview to gain as much information as is needed to help you make effective and appropriate decisions about your career. Setting Goals follows these discoveries and decisions. The next step is:

  1. Testing. During subsequent counseling sessions, testing is usually conducted as an additional facilitation tool to help you and your counselor gain knowledge about different aspects of yourself that will help in the decision making process. There are several types of interest, workplace, and personality inventories that can be administered to help you obtain a profile of strong points about yourself. Additional assessment instruments such as aptitude tests and college major inventories may be administered, if and when they are necessary. Most assessments are usually self-reporting instruments, and there are no right or wrong answers. Everyone scores 100%….and you’ll come out knowing a more than you ever thought possible about yourself and your possible hidden talents!

    Most career counselors usually administer three or more assessment instruments — or a battery — because different kinds of information can be gained from different kinds of instruments and some people will take to one type of instrument better than to another. Taking a battery of assessments should be a pleasant experience; they are not like the usual school-type tests you remember. As mentioned, there are no right or wrong answers, rather either/or answers. For instance: Would you like to live in the city or the country? At a party, do you do the introductions or do you wait to be introduced? Some of the more common career-related testing instruments administered to clients as part of a career counseling program include the Strong Interest Inventory, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, The Firo-B Workplace Indicator, and The John Holland Self Directed Search. Results of your assessment battery are interpreted for you by your counselor. The trained professional counselor is well versed in recognizing your feelings and may comment about how you react to each individual instrument. At the very least, your counselor will explore your feelings about the assessment results with you. Remember, the testing process is just one tool your counselor will use, and not even the most important one. You are the only expert in what you want in a career and in a lifestyle. No test in the world was ever designed to take the place of your own wants and desires. At best, the testing will act as a catalyst toward your making your own choices about your own future.

  2. Choices. The most important thing to remember is that regardless of your life stage, it can be perfectly normal to be undecided about your career choice. It is an extremely important decision. The more undecided you are in the beginning of your career, the more chances you will give yourself to explore the many options that are open to you. If you are further along in your career, you may not have known you had choices when you started out. In either case, the fact is that the average job seeker will make at least three career transitions and four to seven job changes throughout his or her life! Nothing is written in stone. All we really have to take with us and to give to another employer, or to give to ourselves if we are entrepreneurs, is our skills and abilities. In the past, when a person started a job after high school or college, he or she was “married” to the company. Now they are only living together! The company does not promise an employee a job from “cradle to crave.” With constant restructuring, takeovers, downsizing, and mergers, people do not find security from their companies any more. We find our security, safety, and self-esteem from knowing and marketing our own set of competencies. A career counselor can help you sort out what those competencies are by helping you to consider and investigate these questions:

    What is it that comes naturally to you? What did you fantasize about becoming as you were growing up? What subjects were you good at while attending school? What do you feel passionate about? What are your hobbies and avocations? What have people encouraged you about or complimented you on? You may very well know what you don’t like, and may even go to any lengths to avoid working in those areas. It is what you do like that is sometimes buried deep because of early conditioning such as parental and societal pressures. Actually, you can conceptualize your “perfect” job as a point in the middle of three intersecting circles. The three circles are 1) your abilities and skills, 2) your interests, and 3) the local and global marketplace. Your career counselor will assist you in understanding fully how these three circles intersect with your unique self.

(to be continued)