- Career Interest Self-Assessment Results
An individual’s interest is important in planning a career. Career interests are varied compared to abilities and skills of people. People tend to be attracted to various activities that they are interested in and in which they derive enjoyment. These activities offer them opportunities to develop their skills and abilities. Six themes describe a broad range of areas of interest and define work environments (PCC, 2014). People desire to work in environments that are inconsistent with and promote their interest. Understanding these environments enables one to determine occupations that may satisfy them. These themes include realistic, artistic, social, investigative and conventional and enterprising.
Most people’s primary interests combine one or two of the themes. Various tools are utilized during self-assessment and include workshops, online sources, individual career counseling and books. Workshops services are provided to help in building a career on campus. This is done by developing a plan to connect individual abilities with career opportunities that are available. It begins from the introduction to career planning in which the individual clarifies his career planning needs and learn more about useful resources that can help him achieve his career goals. The next step involves exploring the career interest by use of a Strong-Interest Inventory.
This inventory is used in the clarification of work interests and prominent career. This step is followed by assessment of personality type and career by use of Myers-Briggs type indicator. This indicator helps to understand the individual’s preferred work style and its relation to specific career and work roles. A deeper understanding of these indicators is important in the attainment of higher career satisfaction (PCC, 2014). Work-related values are also identified and clarified. This is done because the workshop focuses on clarifying personal issues.
Workshops help in discovering vital skills. The individual enjoys using most of the time as well as those that he would like to develop further in their career. A Strong Interest Inventory tool provides an opportunity for an individual to assess his interests over a broad range of occupations, school subjects, work activities and leisure activities. The results of the tests provide the RAISEC code and a diagram that is based on the individual’s interests (APA, 2014). These codes help to identify the career options as well as possible academic majors. In this context, the results identified psychology counseling, post-secondary psychology teacher and training and development specialist. It provides a list of careers that enable the individual to identify a career that is consistent with his interests. The Strong Interest Inventory tool produces RIASEC code on the basis of the response given by the individuals. It also offers specific content in areas that are interesting. Another avenue to explore and understand one’s interest is through a career counselor.
The career counselor would take an individual through a thorough career guidance plan that details how his interest relates to career planning and development. Career counseling allows the individual to explore the vast world of work and the existing educational opportunities and plan achievable goals. The process of counseling generates personal insights and growth that utilizes the resources and available opportunities. The process encompasses assessment and self-exploration that will yield a better understanding of interests, skills and goals. It involves personal interviews, career testing and assistance in finding useful resources and information to help the individual achieve career goals.
Students are fond of creating a long list of interests while others have a difficulty in identifying their interests. The struggle to identify interests can be attributed to little or limited experience in work, limited access to resources, low self-esteem and environmental constraints. However, academic subjects studied in high school can provide useful insights into the career path an individual would like to pursue. The subjects that were boring and uninteresting may not influence the type of career someone may want to pursue. The individual needs to explore his interests and determine which career best reflect his interests.
