Self Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . .	{ abilities , interest , personality , value }
Career Exploration . . . . . . . . . .	{ research guide , informational interview , shadowing }
Processing / Decision Making

 

I want to choose a career direction.

The career decision-making process is designed to give you a work-life of choice rather than chance. Most people usually take the first job offered. Few have ever heard about career planning. After considering the facts discussed on the Think About It page, you may realize why it is so important. From start to finish the career planning process is a balance between choice (your decision-making process), chance (unplanned opportunities and environmental conditions) and constraints (the limitations resulting from your circumstances).

The career decision-making process, itself, gives you a tool which you can use throughout your life for career planning and development. This is a process that is helpful for those starting their career or those who want to change their career direction. Furthermore, it is a decison making process that you can use in other areas of your life.

The goal is to: Make a good fit between you and an occupation.

An Introduction To The Decision-Making Process

We are asking you to engage in a formal Career-Decision Making Process. It involves activities which are not necessary to complete in the same order or in a straight line, but you should usually progress through all of the following activities in some order. Any activity can push you back to a previous activity in response to new information.

Self Exploration

Researchers have found that people are more successful at their job tasks and find more personal satisfaction with their occupation if five personal factors match the occupational characteristics. In order to increase this match, career counselors have found that it is important for individuals to become aware of and consider these five personal factors: personality, abilities, interests, values and past experiences. If you gain more self-awareness about these personal factors and the characteristics of the occupation you choose fits well with these factors, you “PAIVE the way” (pronounced pave) to success and satisfaction in the occupation.

For example, if you don't have the ability to do something well, you will probably not be successful and that will make you feel like a failure and/or feel unsatisfied. Not so obvious is how personality can make you more suited to or satisfied with a particular occupation. One example is a person who needs order and predictability to feel comfortable and competent in their life. They are likely to be very unhappy in a job working with young children where they will experience a lot of unexpected events. Another example would be a shy person working as a salesperson.We will consider the process of self exploration in detail in the section devoted to Self Exploration activities. Having a greater knowledge of yourself makes it easier to decide if the characteristics of a job are a good match with your PAIVEs. For example, you can consider if the tasks of the job are ones you have the ability to be good at or if the salary meets you lifestyle needs (i.e., values). To answer these questions you need to do research and gather information on occupations you are considering as well. This is a process we will call Career Exploration.

Career Exploration

The Career Exploration process involves gathering relevant information on occupations regarding their characteristics, which enable you to make decisions about that occupation. For example, the tasks of the job or the salary.
Furthermore, you may have information about an occupation that is incorrect. Perhaps you are not aware of all the different Occupational Alternatives you have in an industry (e.g. health care). Without information, you are making a decision based on relative ignorance.
The procresses of Career and Self Exploration are interdependent. As a consequence of reviewing the information on careers you may experience yourself getting more knowledge about yourself because you will have reactions to the information. You may find yourself saying, "I like that" (interests) or "I couldn't do that" (abilities).
In the section on Career Exploration, we review some of the types of information you should gather before you make a decision and the variety of ways that you can gather that information. We will provide you with internet resources and a research guide to gather the important information needed to make a decision.

Processing:Comparing, Evaluating and Choosing

As you become more aware of your PAIVEs and gather information about about possible occupational choices, it is time to process the information you gathered. This includes processes like comparing, evaluating, and finally choosing. A full description of the strategies available to process, evaluate and choose a career are elaborated on the Processing page.
Comparing includes a logical approach, such as, comparing your skills and abilities to those required in the occupations. In this process, you will find that the occupations you are considering have advantages and disadvantages which may lead you to one (tentative) choice.
Evaluating may happen naturally as it involves your personal reactions to the information you gather during Career Exploration. For example, as you are learning about an occupation, you might be thinking "I like that" or feeling that "I really want to do that."
Choosing: There are two primary myths about career choice that prevent people from being able to make an occupational decision: (a) the belief that there is one best fit for them and (b) the fear that once they choose they will have to stay with that career for the rest of their life. The reality is that each individual could probably find satisfaction and success in more than one occupation. Furthermore, not only do people usually change their occupations more then once in a lifetime, but most peoples' careers evolve once they begin working in their chosen career field. Also, people may become unhappy with their chosen occupation (re-evaluate).
Seen in that light, a career choice is really an educated “best guess” and a “tentative choice ” once you have considered the available information about yourself and the work world.
It is very important to remember that this is not a onetime process. As stated earlier, at anytime in this process your experiences may lead you back to an earlier process. It is not linear or final but a process of lifelong learning and career development. As such, it is better represented by the following model which will be elaborated on the appropriate web page.