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Access for free at openstax.org

12.2 • Your Map to Success: The Career Planning Cycle

Often, career assessment is of great assistance in increasing your self-knowledge. It is most often designed to
help you gain insight more objectively. You may want to think of assessment as pulling information out of you
and helping you put it together in a way that applies to your career. There are two main types of assessments:
formal assessments and informal assessments.

Formal Assessments
Formal assessments are typically referred to as “career tests.” There are thousands available, and many are
found randomly on the Internet. While many of these can be fun, “free” and easily available instruments are
usually not credible. It is important to use assessments that are developed to be reliable and valid. Look to
your career center for their recommendations; their staff has often spent a good deal of time selecting
instruments that they believe work best for students.
Here are some commonly used and useful assessments that you may run across:
• Interest Assessments: Strong Interest Inventory, Self-Directed Search, Campbell Interest and Skill Survey,
Harrington-O’Shea Career Decision-Making System
• Personality Measures: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsQuest), Big Five
Inventory, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, TypeFocus, DiSC
• Career Planning Software: SIGI 3, FOCUS 2

GET CONNECTED
If you would like to do some formal assessment on your own, either in addition to what you can get on
campus or if you don’t believe you have reliable access to career planning, this site developed by the U.S.
Department of Labor (https://www.careeronestop.org/) has some career exploration materials that you may
find helpful.

Informal Assessments
Often, asking questions and seeking answers can help get us information that we need. When we start
working consciously on learning more about any subject, things that we never before considered may become
apparent. Happily, this applies to self-knowledge as well. Some things that you can do outside of career testing
to learn more about yourself can include:
Self-Reflection:
• Notice when you do something that you enjoy or that you did particularly well. What did that feel like?
What about it made you feel positive? Is it something that you’d like to do again? What was the impact that
you made through our actions?
• Most people are the “go to” person for something. What do you find that people come to you for? Are you
good with advice? Do you tend to be a good listener, observing first and then speaking your mind? Do
people appreciate your repair skills? Are you good with numbers? What role do you play in a group?
• If you like to write or record your thoughts, consider creating a career journal that you update regularly,
whether it’s weekly or by semester. If writing your own thoughts is difficult, seek out guided activities that
help prompt you to reflect.
• Many colleges have a career planning course that is designed to specifically lead you through the career
decision-making process. Even if you are decided on your major, these courses can help you refine and
plan best for your field.
Enlist Others:
• Ask people who know you to tell you what they think your strengths are. This information can come from

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12 • Planning for Your Future

•

•

•

•

friends, classmates, professors, advisors, family members, coaches, mentors, and others. What kinds of
things have they observed you doing well? What personal qualities do you have that they value? You are
not asking them to tell you what career you should be in; rather, you are looking to learn more about
yourself.
Find a mentor—such as a professor, an alumnus, an advisor, or a community leader—who shares a value
with you and from whom you think you could learn new things. Perhaps they can share new ways of doing
something or help you form attitudes and perceptions that you believe would be helpful.
Get involved with one or more activities on campus that will let you use skills outside of the classroom. You
will be able to learn more about how you work with a group and try new things that will add to your skill
set.
Attend activities on and off campus that will help you meet people (often alumni) who work in the
professional world. Hearing their career stories will help you learn about where you might want to be. Are
there qualities that you share with them that show you may be on a similar path to success? Can you
envision yourself where they are?
No one assessment can tell you exactly what career is right for you; the answers to your career questions
are not in a test. The reality of career planning is that it is a discovery process that uses many methods
over time to strengthen our career knowledge and belief in ourselves.

ACTIVITY
Choose one of the suggestions from the list, above, and follow through on it. Keep a log or journal of your
experience with the activity and note how this might help you think about your future after college.

Explore Jobs and Careers
Many students seem to believe that the most important decision they will make in college is to choose their
major. While this is an important decision, even more important is to determine the type of knowledge you
would like to have, understand what you value, and learn how you can apply this in the workplace after you
graduate. For example, if you know you like to help people, this is a value. If you also know that you’re
interested in math and/or finances, you might study to be an accountant. To combine both of these, you would
gain as much knowledge as you can about financial systems and personal financial habits so that you can
provide greater support and better help to your clients.
The four factors of self-knowledge (interests, skills/aptitudes, values, and personality), which manifest in your
KSAs, are also the factors on which employers evaluate your suitability for their positions. They consider what
you can bring to their organization that is at once in line with their organization’s standards and something
they need but don’t have in their existing workforce.
Along with this, each job has KSAs that define it. You may think about finding a job/career as looking like the
figure below.

Access for free at openstax.org

12.2 • Your Map to Success: The Career Planning Cycle

Often, career assessment is of great assistance in increasing your self-knowledge. It is most often designed to

help you gain insight more objectively. You may want to think of assessment as pulling information out of you

and helping you put it together in a way that applies to your career. There are two main types of assessments:

formal assessments and informal assessments.

Formal Assessments

Formal assessments are typically referred to as “career tests.” There are thousands available, and many are

found randomly on the Internet. While many of these can be fun, “free” and easily available instruments are

usually not credible. It is important to use assessments that are developed to be reliable and valid. Look to

your career center for their recommendations; their staff has often spent a good deal of time selecting

instruments that they believe work best for students.

Here are some commonly used and useful assessments that you may run across:

• Interest Assessments: Strong Interest Inventory, Self-Directed Search, Campbell Interest and Skill Survey,

Harrington-O’Shea Career Decision-Making System

• Personality Measures: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsQuest), Big Five

Inventory, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, TypeFocus, DiSC

• Career Planning Software: SIGI 3, FOCUS 2

GET CONNECTED

If you would like to do some formal assessment on your own, either in addition to what you can get on

campus or if you don’t believe you have reliable access to career planning, this site developed by the U.S.

Department of Labor (https://www.careeronestop.org/) has some career exploration materials that you may

find helpful.

Informal Assessments

Often, asking questions and seeking answers can help get us information that we need. When we start

working consciously on learning more about any subject, things that we never before considered may become

apparent. Happily, this applies to self-knowledge as well. Some things that you can do outside of career testing

to learn more about yourself can include:

Self-Reflection:

• Notice when you do something that you enjoy or that you did particularly well. What did that feel like?

What about it made you feel positive? Is it something that you’d like to do again? What was the impact that

you made through our actions?

• Most people are the “go to” person for something. What do you find that people come to you for? Are you

good with advice? Do you tend to be a good listener, observing first and then speaking your mind? Do

people appreciate your repair skills? Are you good with numbers? What role do you play in a group?

• If you like to write or record your thoughts, consider creating a career journal that you update regularly,

whether it’s weekly or by semester. If writing your own thoughts is difficult, seek out guided activities that

help prompt you to reflect.

• Many colleges have a career planning course that is designed to specifically lead you through the career

decision-making process. Even if you are decided on your major, these courses can help you refine and

plan best for your field.

Enlist Others:

• Ask people who know you to tell you what they think your strengths are. This information can come from

377

378

12 • Planning for Your Future

•

friends, classmates, professors, advisors, family members, coaches, mentors, and others. What kinds of

things have they observed you doing well? What personal qualities do you have that they value? You are

not asking them to tell you what career you should be in; rather, you are looking to learn more about

yourself.

Find a mentor—such as a professor, an alumnus, an advisor, or a community leader—who shares a value

with you and from whom you think you could learn new things. Perhaps they can share new ways of doing

something or help you form attitudes and perceptions that you believe would be helpful.

Get involved with one or more activities on campus that will let you use skills outside of the classroom. You

will be able to learn more about how you work with a group and try new things that will add to your skill

set.

Attend activities on and off campus that will help you meet people (often alumni) who work in the

professional world. Hearing their career stories will help you learn about where you might want to be. Are

there qualities that you share with them that show you may be on a similar path to success? Can you

envision yourself where they are?

No one assessment can tell you exactly what career is right for you; the answers to your career questions

are not in a test. The reality of career planning is that it is a discovery process that uses many methods

over time to strengthen our career knowledge and belief in ourselves.

ACTIVITY

Choose one of the suggestions from the list, above, and follow through on it. Keep a log or journal of your

experience with the activity and note how this might help you think about your future after college.

Explore Jobs and Careers

Many students seem to believe that the most important decision they will make in college is to choose their

major. While this is an important decision, even more important is to determine the type of knowledge you

would like to have, understand what you value, and learn how you can apply this in the workplace after you

graduate. For example, if you know you like to help people, this is a value. If you also know that you’re

interested in math and/or finances, you might study to be an accountant. To combine both of these, you would

gain as much knowledge as you can about financial systems and personal financial habits so that you can

provide greater support and better help to your clients.

The four factors of self-knowledge (interests, skills/aptitudes, values, and personality), which manifest in your

KSAs, are also the factors on which employers evaluate your suitability for their positions. They consider what

you can bring to their organization that is at once in line with their organization’s standards and something

they need but don’t have in their existing workforce.

Along with this, each job has KSAs that define it. You may think about finding a job/career as looking like the

figure below.