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Before you make ANY career decision, ask yourself the following 3 questions:
- Do I know what I am naturally good at?
- Do I know what I am most interested in and how that relates to my job choice?
- Do I know what matters most to me in my work environment?
Whether you are a student who is in career exploration mode, an experienced worker interested in a new job or a career change, or someone who is searching for their life’s mission, knowing your Career Profile is always the first place to start.
Are you good at something, but hate having to do it for a job?
Do you really like doing a particular activity, but don’t do it as well as some others?
Do you have a job you like and are good at, but your workplace is all wrong for you?
Then it’s time to work on your Career Profile. You must simultaneously know what you are
naturally good at (aptitudes), what you like to do (vocational interests) and what is
important
to you in your work environment (work values) if you are to be productive and successful at
work
and happy in your career.
Vocational interests are those work activities and tasks that you ‘like to do’ – you are
attracted to, curious about, enjoy doing, and motivated to work at – even if you are not
inherently great at them. Do you enjoy a certain sport? Do you enjoy that sport even if it
doesn’t come naturally to you?
Aptitudes are your ‘natural abilities’ – those pursuits that you are ‘instinctively good
at’.
These are the tasks that come easy to you, those skills you seemed to have from an early
age.
And ironically, while you may have in-born aptitudes, it is a separate issue from interest –
you
can have a high aptitude for something but may be more interested in other things. Does
music
come easy to you? That’s a wonderful aptitude, especially if you enjoy doing it. Or do you
have
a high music aptitude but enjoy other things more?
Work values are your operating principles at work. They are the characteristics, beliefs and
behaviours that guide your life decisions and that need to be enacted in your work
environment.
Do you prefer an exciting job, full of surprises or do you favour a more predictable
environment? Is it important to work for an organisation that values sustainability? Do you
prefer to work alone or in a group? These characteristics are part of your work values and
are
key when making job and career choices.
Each of these personal characteristics can and should be measured. If you can’t measure
something, can you really understand it?
Your personal characteristics can be measured quantitively (via psychometric assessments) or
qualitatively (via interviews, personal narratives, written assignments, etc). I use both
methods in my career counselling practice.
After an initial interview (qualitative), I typically use 3 psychometric assessments
(quantitative) – standard, science-based methods to measure one’s individual personality
characteristics and aptitudes. I always recommend using the best psychometrically sound
(valid and reliable) assessments for each of the 3 personal characteristics – interests,
aptitudes and values.
Psychometric assessments are usually less time-consuming and less expensive than qualitative
approaches. They are also often more accurate because they are developed and tested across a
large sample of participants. This approach is also more likely to provide consistent
results over time and the predictive power is more easily discerned.
While qualitative assessments provide a more nuanced perspective, they rely on a ‘sample of
1’ – you. And their interpretation is also based on the perceptions of one person – the
career practitioner or counsellor. For these reasons, after the initial interview, I
typically focus on psychometrics and then turn to qualitative methods to seek further
clarification or confirmation
Once you have measured your aptitudes, interests and values in a scientifically-informed
way, these characteristics need to be synthesised into your personal Career Profile. At its
most fundamental level, your Career Profile should summarise:
- What you are good at
- What you are good at and like to do at the same time
- What work environment you need to do what you are good at and like to do
It’s not enough to just know what you are good at (say, music) – you also need to know if you will enjoy what you are good at. And you need to know what characteristics that your work environment must have to do what you are good at.
While the World of Work is changing constantly, your vocational interests, aptitudes and work values remain relatively stable over the course of your lifetime. That’s why systematically measuring your key personal characteristics and integrating them into your Career Profile is so important. This can be the basis for finding your unique and authentic self and manifesting it in your work life. Once you know your Career Profile, it should be referenced each time you make an important job or career decision.
