2.1: Getting Started With Careers Assessments

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Graciela Martinez and Elizabeth Shaker
College of the Canyons

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If you do not know yourself, how can you possibly know what you want to do for a career? In this unit, you will be taking several career assessments to better understand yourself and make choices that are more informed when it comes to researching your career options. These assessments will help pinpoint your personality preferences, workplace strengths and direct you toward professions that best compliment your unique personality. You will also identify your values, underlying needs and motivations and make connections to how these play into your future career vision.

The first phase of career and life planning involves answering the question, “Who Am I?” This phase entails taking time to study yourself in depth and understanding things such as:

What motivates you?
What do you like doing?
What do you not like doing?
What work environments energize you and what environments drain you?
What are your character strengths and what skills do you have or can you acquire that employers will pay you for?

Your answers to these questions will help you find “Your Meaningful Work.” Certified Dream Coach and Dream Coach Group Leader, Bill Johnson, has created a powerful diagram that illustrates this point. The center of the diagram where all components intersect is where “Your Meaningful Work” lies. Keep this in mind as we explore each of these components through the different career assessments.

G:\OER\Textbooks\Counseling\Couns 110\Graphics\Couns 110 Meaningful diagram.jpg — Figure 2.1 – Finding meaningful work (Image by Ian Joslin is licensed under CC BY 4.0).

No assessment can possibly know more about you than you know about yourself. You are your own expert, however, these career assessments will help give you a frame of reference. They will help you make connections to your past experiences and help you apply them to your future career goals. Be sure to keep an open mind throughout this process. Ask questions and explore areas of uncertainty. You only know what you know, and the more time and energy you invest in self-exploration, the more informed you will be as you make decisions that impact your future career goals. This journey can be fun and exciting and at times a bit overwhelming, however the more you put into it, the more you will gain!