Mapping Your Career Path

Confused About your Direction? What you need is a map to help you determine which direction is best for you. Try these three things to lead you to a successful career:

• Identify your personal characteristics, skills, and work values through self-assessment activities.
• Learn about the world of work.
• Match your personal characteristics, skills, and values with work that allows expression of who you are!

Self-Assessment Activities

Personal Characteristics
Circle the following adjectives that best (usually) describe you.

Skills Assessment

Describe your experiences, focusing on your responsibilities and achievements. Using the Data, People, and Things Checklists on the next page, analyze each description to identify the skills that you have developed and/or demonstrated in your experiences. Place a star next to each skill word that matches your experience. This information will be helpful for writing your resume.

Data Skills Checklist

When using DATA in my experiences, I:

People Skills Checklist

When working with PEOPLE in my experiences, I:

Skills Summary

Summarize the results of the Data, People, and Things Checklists from the previous pages below:

1. The type of skill (data, people or things) I used most in the past is (to respond to this statement, count the number of check marks in each list):
2. Within this category (listed above), I most enjoy using these skills:
3. I also enjoy using these skills from the other two categories:

I Want To Work With People

Do you think you want to work with people? The following exercise will help you determine if this is true.

Check whichever of the following activities appeal to you:

Influencing the attitudes and ideas of others
Investigate people by obtaining information about them
Gathering information through direct contact
Providing service to others with people
Helping people with personal problems
Mediating between contending parties
Instructing other people in various tasks or skills
Organizing others and bringing people together in cooperative efforts
Supervising others in their work
Making decisions about others
Managing the work of others, being responsible for their output,
even when not a supervisor
Socializing with people on a regular basis
Understanding people and studying their behavior
Confronting others and presenting them with difficult decisions

Check one or more of the following statements if they apply to you:

I want to be part of a working team.
I want to have people seek out my help or services.
I want to seek out other people.
I want to see different people every day that I work.
I want to work with the same people for a long period of time.
I want a lot of contact with a small number of people.
I want brief (one-time) contacts with a large number of people.
I do not mind being interrupted by people or to be on call as their needs require.
I like to be able to regulate my own hours, decide when people will see me and when I can get away from them.
I want to get to know a group of people through regular contact
Other: ___________________________________________________________

Reprinted with permission of the Carroll Press, Cranston, R.I., from Path: A Career Workbook for Liberal Arts Students, Second Edition, by Howard Figler.(c)'79, 69-70.

Work Values: Finding Satisfaction in Your Job

The goal of a career is to obtain satisfaction from your career and in the workplace. Below is a list of some of the values people strive to obtain from their careers. Review the following definitions and, using the scale below, rate the degree of importance that you would assign to each aspect of employment.

1 = Not important at all
2 = Not very important
3 = Reasonably important
4 = Very important

____Societal Contribution: Contributing to the betterment of the world.
____Direct Service: Helping individuals or groups in a direct way.
____Public Contact: Having a lot of day-to-day contact with people.
____Affiliation: Being identified as a member of a particular organization.
____Organizational Goals: Working for an organization with goals similar to your own.
____Friendships: Developing close personal relationships with people as a result of work.
____Competition: Engaging in activities which pit your abilities against others.
____Decision-Making Roles: Deciding policies, plans, etc.
____Power and Authority: Controlling the work activities of others.
____Influencing People: Being in a position to change attitudes or opinions of others.
____Working Alone: Working on projects by yourself.
____Opportunity to Create: Creating new ideas, programs, structures, etc.
____Change/Variety: Having responsibilities that frequently change.
____Routine: Repeating the same tasks frequently.
____Precision: Working in situations where there is very little tolerance for error.
____Security: Being assured of steady work and reasonable financial reward.
____Fast Pace: Working in a setting where there is a quick rate of activity.
____Recognition: Being recognized publicly for quality of work.
____Excitement/Adventure: Doing work that is exciting and risky.
____Challenge: Handling difficult work and mastering new ideas.
____Profit: Having a strong likelihood of making large amounts of money or other material gains.
____Independence: Working without much or any supervision.
____Time Freedom: Having responsibilities that may be worked on according to your own schedule.
____Location: Working in a geographical location which is conducive to your lifestyle and interests.

Now choose the four work values that are most important to you and write them on the line below.

1.___________________________ 3._____________________________

2.___________________________ 4. _____________________________