Jobs & Employment

Job dissatisfaction? Having trouble paying your rent? School graduation? Some events triggering a career decision may be in your control – like school graduation. But others, like layoffs or disability, are not. Either way, you can make progress towards choosing a career that meets your needs by looking at what motivates you.

First, make sure you do the suggested exercises in our article, “Learn More About Yourself.”

Second, think about how your career needs fit into respected psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”. This diagram of the hierarchy, courtesy of Wikipedia, may help you prioritize and put your career criteria in perspective.

To give you some ideas, I applied career choice to Maslow’s hierarchy, from the bottom up:

Physiological: physical and mental ability to do the job, income helps you meet your physical needs (food, water, shelter)
Safety: positive job outlook and security, doing what is morally comfortable
Belonging: being part of a team, professional network, community
Esteem: pride in your work, your career, and confidence in your abilities
Self-Actualization: reaching your potential and maximizing your life experience

See how your matching career options fit with Maslow’s 5 categories of needs. While no career is perfect, your final career choice should meet your needs in all these areas.

I want to say thank you to Ben Eubanks, a writer at the popular Jobacle.com site, for giving us such a positive review for our newly updated eBook, “2009 What Job is Best for Me?” He did a great job and really focused on what’s important about choosing a career.

Career Key Canada, our new resource for helping Canadians choose or change careers, is off to a great start! Last week I spent 4 days in Toronto at Cannexus 2009, the national career development conference for Canada. Our new site links your Holland personality to Canadian careers and Canadian career information - the only scientifically valid career test based on Holland’s Theory to do so.

Here I am holding down the fort. Fortunately I didn’t have to worry about my laptop going missing since my neighbors were the Canadian Forces. Don’t we all have a renewed appreciation for our Navy folks in light of all the piracy news? Talk about a much needed ego boost for us here in the States, we needed to take out some bad guys…

I gave a presentation in addition to manning the exhibitor table and I have to say this has been one of the best conferences I have been to. The career counsellors I met were very friendly and interested in sharing their goals and challenges. There was a lot of interest and I am working on getting back to the many people I met.

If there are any career counsellors or career development practitioners out there, in Canada or the U.S. who want to try out and evaluate any of our Career Key tests or products, please email me: julietjones at careerkey.biz. I would be glad to help you.

So I’m back to posting to the blog after a little hiatus. I’m not one of those Twitterers or Bloggers who hires someone to blog under my name - so I have to write it myself. Lucky for you!

If you are choosing a career, have you ever considered how all your career options are organized? I bet you haven’t – but why not? Being “well organized” isn’t just for Martha Stewart wanna-bes or accountants, is it?

Being well-organized is cool. The Container Store has made it acceptable to pay $50 for a plastic storage container made in China that you could have purchased at Target for $10.99. The Container Store version is just more beautiful. Also think IKEA. Love those brightly colored containers.

And you know how financial gurus say treat your physical money with the respect it deserves? (not stuffed loose in your pocket for example).

Being organized means you have your life put together – something to be admired and an efficient way to access your stuff. Smart organization can also help you make a big life decision like choosing or changing a career.

You might want to consider how your buffet of career choices is organized. How else can you be sure that when you choose your career, you’re looking at your options in an efficient, comprehensive way?

The Unhelpful Alphabetical Career Laundry List
How many of you have received an alphabetical laundry list of “matching” careers from a valid or invalid career test? “You should be an: actor, architect, art therapist, author…..” Everybody has.

The Smart, Organized Alternative for Matching Careers
If you want to see a science-based way to organize career choices, visit Career Key’s article “Match Your Personality with Careers.” For each Holland personality type, you can see a list of occupations organized into work groups – related careers with similar worker traits, skills, and abilities. If you’re from Canada, go to the Career Key Canada’s article. Dr. Lawrence K. Jones, The Career Key’s author and a vocational expert, organized this system – not a marketing copy writer.

Go to any other website offering a career test to the public, free or otherwise, and you will not find career options so well organized in a practical and useful way.

You have to be a special person/geek to love classification systems for careers – also referred to as “taxonomies.” Recently I’ve met a few like minded professionals who care about them as much as I do. I appreciate them also because my family is largely made up of geeks, linear thinkers, and engineers.

So I dedicate this post to my fellow taxonomy enthusiasts and career development practitioners who see the value in a well-organized and high quality approach to choosing a career. I think users appreciate it too.

Many people choosing or changing a career encounter these top 3 barriers:

1. Cultural transitions: military to civilian, government to private sector, immigrant working in a new country;
2. Career indecision: being overwhelmed, fear of the unknown, and/or you’re just an indecisive person.
3. Practical obstacles to employment: affordable childcare, disability, or finding reliable transportation to work, a lack of job skills or education

Not knowing how to work through and overcome these barriers is the biggest problem of all. Add the stress of tight finances, insecurity about your own abilities, and family pressures, it’s amazing anyone makes a breakthrough. But you can, using the suggestions below and the other resources on The Career Key, Career Key Canada and Self-Employment Key websites.

Whether you find this comforting or not, ultimately you are in the driver’s seat for your career path. I have 3 suggestions that will help you deal with whatever barriers apply to you:

Holland’s Theory of Career Choice.
Don’t try to “reverse engineer” your career choice – like, I can do X, therefore I must be X. It should be forward looking: I am most interested in and my personality fits ________, and how do I make that happen?

Learn about how Holland’s Theory helps you choose a satisfying career. Choose your career first, worry about how to get the job skills and education later while exploring careers and making a high quality decision.

Long-term planning.
If you plan towards a specific career goal, you’ll be more likely to reach it. It will also give you hope and motivation. Whether you’re a gas station attendant, foreign trained doctor, or a laid off executive, it’s possible you have to work in a lower paid job than you’re used to while you go to school, network for your dream job, or start your own business. If possible, choose an interim career that matches your personality.

And if you’re an indecisive person to begin with, try finding your specific career goal by using these proven 4 steps to making a good career decision. We offer you a free downloadable “Decision Balance Sheet.” If that doesn’t help, try these other activities including personal career counseling.

Networking.
Both online and offline, networking offers your best chances at learning about the careers that interest you, affordable childcare options, the best nonprofit and government resources, and getting moral support from other people. If you’re an Internet junkie, get outside and meet people in person. If you’re not familiar with online networking, figure it out – and talk to people who are doing it.

In future posts I’m going to focus on each of these top 3 barriers to career decision-making. Right now, I’m working on post about making a military to civilian transition. If you have something standing in your career path to share, I’d love to hear about it.

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