28 Sep CAREER INVENTORY ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS
CAREER INVENTORY ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS
OVERVIEW
This Career Inventory Activity will guide you through the steps of completing various career development self-assessments. You will be exposed to the O*NET Online career resource center which houses career self-assessment exploration tools to help discover work activities and occupations of interest to you. In addition to assessing your interests and values you will have an opportunity to assess your decision-making factors and spiritual discernment approach as it applies to your career development. The information gained from this assignment will assist you with gaining a deeper understanding of your career direction and values that have influenced your past, current and future career path. The results of your assessments during this activity will be used in the Career Self-Assessment & Exploration Paper. This assignment experience will also contribute to your skills used when counseling others along their career development path.
INSTRUCTIONS
You will complete the following steps in order to prepare for and complete the Career Self-Assessment & Exploration Paper:
STEP I: Spiritual Discernment
• Read Discerning Spiritual Discernment: Assessing Current Approaches for Understanding God’s Will (Horton, 2009). This article can be found in Module 2.
• Complete the Decision-Making Factors Survey found in the Appendix of the article.
• Identify the factors you identify as “very important” and use these results to determine the Spiritual Discernment approach you identify with.
• Use these results to answer the prompts in the Career Self-Assessment and Exploration Template.
STEP II: The O*NET Interest Profiler
Complete the following directions for taking the O*NET Interest Profiler
1. Click on the link: O*NET Interest Profiler. Follow the directions (click “Next”) and take the O*NET Interest Profiler.
2. Once you have completed the O*NET Interest Profiler, record your numeric results for each of the 6 Holland codes. Print the results.
3. Read the Explore the Job Zones information to determine your preferred job zone. You may print the information.
4. Select your preferred Job Zone and click “Next.”
5. Read the Interest Profiler Potential Careers. Explore any careers that may interest you. If there are no careers that interest you, click the “Find More Careers” option.
6. Make sure that you can identify the following from Step 1:
• Your primary interest area (highest score),
• Your secondary interest area,
• Your current job zone,
• Your future job zone, and
• Identify at least 2 occupations and their O*NET-SOC Code matching your primary interest area.
7. Save the information from this assignment to complete the Career Self-Assessment and Exploration self-reflection paper.
STEP III: The Value Sort
1. Value Sort Step 1: What I Value Most…
From the list of values (both work-related and personal) found below, select the 10 that are most important to you as guides for how to behave or as components of a valued way of life. Feel free to add any values of your own to this list, but only identify 10 values when making your final selection. Write down or circle the 10 values.
List of Values:
Achievement Friendships Physical challenge
Advancement and promotion Growth Pleasure
Adventure Having a family Power and authority
Affection (love and caring) Helping other people Privacy
Arts Helping society Public service
Challenging problems Honesty Purity
Change and variety Independence Quality of what I take part in
Close relationships Influencing others Quality relationships
Community Inner harmony Recognition (respect from others, status)
Competence Integrity Religion
Competition Intellectual status Reputation
Cooperation Involvement Responsibility and accountability
Country Job tranquility Security
Creativity Knowledge Self-respect
Decisiveness Leadership Serenity
Democracy Location Sophistication
Ecological awareness Loyalty Stability
Economic security Market position Status
Effectiveness Meaningful work Supervising others
Efficiency Merit Time freedom
Ethical practice Money Truth
Excellence Nature Wealth
Excitement Wisdom Being around people who are open and honest
Fame Order (tranquility,stability, conformity) Work under pressure
Fast living Personal development Work with others
Financial gain Freedom Working alone
2. Value Sort Step 2: Elimination.
1. Now that you have identified 10 values, imagine that you are only permitted to have 5. Which 5 would you give up? Cross them off.
2. Now imagine that you are only permitted 4. Which would you give up? Cross it off.
3. Now cross off another value to bring your list down to 3.
4. Cross off another value, to bring your list down to 2.
5. Finally cross off 1 of your 2 values. What is the top value on your list?
3. Click on the link: O*NET: My Next Move. Find the “I want to be a . . .” search box. Describe your dream career in a few words. Keeping your principle value in mind, find 2 occupations that are most consistent with your principle values.
4. You will need to identify the following information for the Career Self Assessment and Exploration Paper:
• Your primary personal/work value;
• Your second, third, fourth, and fifth personal/work values;
• Values 6–10, if important to you;
• Your feelings during the process of eliminating or prioritizing values; and
• Select 2 occupations (and their codes) that are consistent with your values.
STEP IV: Combining the Results and Exploring a Career
Directions
1. Using the O*NET Interest Profiler and the Value Sort results found in Steps II and III, identify:
• Your primary and secondary interests,
• Your 3 highest work values, and
• Your current and future work zones.
2. Based on both your interest and values results, identify one O*NET occupation you want to explore. Record the O*NET-SOC Code and Title.
STEP V: Complete the Career Self-Assessment & Exploration Paper.
Use the results from this activity to conceptualize your career development process, explore a potential occupation, and apply your training to a case scenario. Follow the prompts in the Career Self-Assessment & Exploration Template as a guide for conceptualizing your results and writing your paper.
