Step 1: Know Yourself
Take A Career Interest Assessment
Before looking ahead to your future and deciding upon next steps, it is valuable to take some time to look within:
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What motivates & interests you?
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What skills do you enjoy?
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What activities are meaningful and fulfilling for you?
Career assessments are a great way to learn more about your interests, skills, preferences, and strengths. Once you complete an assessment, you will have an opportunity to explore careers that align with your results.
It is important to remember that career assessments are simply tools and they do not know you better than you. They are NOT telling what you should or should not do in the world of work. You can decide if you agree with the results or not. The goal of career assessments is to open up the world of possibility and explore careers you may not have considered before. So, approach your results with curiosity as well as your critical thinking skills.
Understanding Career Assessment:
Using Holland Types
Before taking one of the career assessments below, learn about the 6 Holland Personality Types:
Holland Personality Types were created by Dr. John Holland to help people think about their interests and how they align with occupations that may be a good fit for them. Dr. Holland's theory identifies six broad areas to describe people, their personalities and interests. Additionally, he proposes that people are usually happier and more satisfied if there is a “fit” between their personality type and their chosen work environment. Since we are complex beings, people tend to gravitate towards a combination of two or three personality types to best describe their interests.
Which Two or Three Holland Types Best Fit You?
Realistic:
The Doers or Builders
People with realistic interests like work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions. They enjoy dealing with plants, animals, and real-world materials, like wood, tools, and machinery. They enjoy outside work. They are less likely to enjoy occupations that mainly involve doing paperwork or working closely with others.
Artistic:
The Creators
People with artistic interests like work activities that deal with the artistic side of things, such as careers in the arts, design, performance, music, writing and language. They enjoy self-expression, creativity, originality, and using their imagination. They prefer settings where work can be done without following a clear set of rules.
Enterprising:
The Persuaders
People with enterprising interests like work activities that have to do with starting up and carrying out projects. They like persuading, motivating, and leading people as well as making decisions. They like action, taking risks, progress, and achieving results,. They often enjoy careers in business, management, sales, politics and the law
Investigative:
The Thinkers
People with investigative interests like work activities that have to do with ideas, problem-solving, theorizing, analyzing, and intellectual inquiry. They like to search for facts and figure out problems mentally rather than engage in physical work or lead people. They often identify as intellectual, curious, logical, and analytical.
Social:
The Helpers
People with social interests like work activities that assist others and promote learning and personal development. They prefer to communicate more than working with objects, machines, or data. They like to teach, give advice, help, coach, and serve others. They identify as compassionate, patient, helpful, friendly, generous, and cooperative
Conventional:
The Organizers
People with conventional interests like work activities that follow set procedures and routines as well as use data and processes. They prefer clear lines of authority and precise standards. They often identify as methodical, orderly, thorough, and detail-oriented. They may prefer careers in business, office administration, accounting, and technology.
Take A Career Assessment
A career assessment can help you learn more about your interests, skills & strengths. Remember career assessments are NOT telling you what careers you should or should not do. They are just tools to help you explore the world of possibility and identify careers you may not have considered before. They do not know you better than you know you so you get to decide which results you find helpful.
Each of the websites below provide a FREE version of the Interest Profiler. This assessment can help you explore Holland Types that might be a good fit for you. Upon completion of the assessment, you will be able to explore a variety of careers that align with each Holland Type or combination of Holland Types. Play around with the different websites because they each have different career banks and will give you different career ideas as well as different information about each career.
Oregon Career Information System
OCIS is now FREE for everyone. It is a very comprehensive tool for researching careers as well as using career assessments to match careers to interests and skills. OCIS offers three different career assessments:
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Interest Profiler
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Career Themes
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Skills
Since OCIS is a very comprehensive site with a lot of tools and an option to set up a personal portfolio, it is helpful to use this OCIS INSTRUCTION GUIDE to help you navigate the site.
My Next Move
Take the INTEREST PROFILER under the "Discover Your Interests" section to explore careers related to your Holland Types.