My Career Voyage! Charting The Course

By Patty E. Shaver
Career Development Facilitator

The first tool in the career planning process is assessment. Before you can determine what it is you would like to do in your career, you first need to "know yourself." The self-assessments listed below are designed to help you "know yourself" by assessing your skills, abilities, personality, interests and values (work importance).

Interests Assessments
The Career Key, developed by Lawrence K. Jones, will help you find your Holland Code, which generally consists of three letters (RIASEC). Your Holland Code will be very helpful when exploring occupations so be sure to print your results to use later.

OR

O*NET Interest Profiler, is based on John Holland’s code that measures six types of occupational interests: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. Your Holland Code will be very helpful when exploring occupations so be sure to print your results to use later. For a description of the six types of occupational interests, be sure to download the user’s guide and read the section titled, “Interpretation of the O*NET Interest Profiler Results.”

Personality Type
Discover Your Type, by Paul D. Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger is based on Myers-Briggs Type indicator instrument (MBTI).

Skills/Abilities Assessments
Ability Profiler, is an instrument that helps career planners identify their abilities and match them to occupations that require these abilities. The O*NET Ability Profiler measures nine basic abilities related to occupations, such as: verbal ability, arithmetic reasoning, computation, spatial ability, form perception, clerical perception, motor coordination, manual dexterity and finger dexterity.

Skills Profiler is an instrument that helps career planners identify their abilities and match them to occupations that require these skills.

Skill Scan Identify your transferable skills.

Values/Work Importance Assessment
Work Importance Locator and O*NET Work Importance Profiler measure six types of work values: achievement, independence, recognition, relationships, support and working conditions.

Assessments should be interpreted by a qualified career specialist who is licensed or certified, such as a career counselor or career development facilitator. If you would like assistance with career assessments, go to the contact page and send me an e-mail. I can help.

The next step, is career exploration.