What Do You Want to Do?

Reposition yourself to re-enter the workforce; join me on my personal branding journey.

Once we understand our strengths, weaknesses, skills and interests, the next step is to decide where we want to go. I saw a great quote from Alice in Wonderland in the Careerbright Blog .

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don't much care where.
Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go. 

Knowing where you want to go is an important first step in getting there. So, how do we know? Basically, I want to continue on the career path that I was previously on, so I don't have much decision making to do. But, if you are unclear, then you must come up with some choices. According to Norman J. Meshriy, M.S., N.C.C., a career counselor based in San Francisco, CA, a good starting place is brainstorming alternatives. Next, consider the wants and needs you came up with in the values exercise and rate your career alternatives against these. For a good match, you want a career or occupation that meets most of your criteria.  Following are some resources to give you some ideas if you are truly at a loss or at this for the first time.

• Occupational Outlook Handbook or other reference books that list careers in your area of interest
• www.sigi3.org - online career software
• www.eureka.org - online career service

My example: I want a product marketing or branding position with a firm that has similar values to mine, and the vision and resources to create exciting and effective marketing campaigns.

See you next Friday...

Skills and Interests

Reposition yourself to re-enter the workforce; join me on my personal branding journey.

Last week I talked about values, strengths and weakness in the career self-assessment process. This week I will cover skills and interests. On my MBTI post I mentioned CISS - Campbell Interest and Skills Survey and Skillscan as tools I have used that you can find online to help you target your interests and skills.

 According to CISS individual profile results report, your vocational interests and skills are important components of your personal characteristics. What you like to do, and what you are confident that you can do, can play an important role in your future careeer satisfaction and success.  The CISS profile analyzes your self-reported interests and your self-reported skills and shows how you compare with people in general and with happily employed people in a variety of occupations.

Your CISS profile is organized into seven Orientation Scales covering important areas of the world of work.

• Influencing
• Organizing
• Helping
• Creating
• Analyzing
• Producing
• Adventuring

I scored highest in Creating  and Influencing Orientations which is in sync with my values.  Recommended occupations to pursue include Advertising/Marketing and International Activities.

Influencers like to make things happen. They are often visible because they tend to take charge of activities that interest them. They typically work in organizations where they are responsible for directing activities, setting policies and motivating people.

From the Skillscan exercise I came up with the following summary of action verbs which describe my skills.

• Communication - motivate, promote, facilitate, consult
• Mental Creative - conceptualize, brainstorm, intuit
• Leadership - initiate, plan, decide, influence

Now that we have a good list of wants, needs, interests and skills under our belt, the next step will be using them to begin defining and setting some goals for ourselves.

See you next Friday...

Refocus on Career Self-Assessment

Reposition yourself to re-enter the workforce; join me on my personal branding journey.

The first step in deciding what kind of career or job you want is figuring out what your values, strengths, skills and interests are. We have already looked at the Myers Briggs Type Indicator which offers some valuable insights.   

My Type:  INFP    

• Is driven by values
• Is a good leader
• Is a team player
• Is a visionary
• Is idealistic and a perfectionist (possible negatives)

 These are some of my strengths and weaknesses. For my type, it is especially important to know what my values are.  Following is a list of my top values based on an exercise I did to define them:
   
My Values:

1. Mental Creativity -Need to do work that is creative like marketing.
2. Intellectual Stimulation - Need to be developing mentally, if not, I feel bored. 
3. Humor - Want to have fun at work, being happy is important, want to like the people I work with.
4. Location - Want to stay in one place, do not want to travel more than 25%.
5. Leadership - Want to motivate others to achieve excellence through team work.
6. Work with Others - Want to be part of a team working together towards a common goal.
7. Decison Making - Want the power to make decisions and have them carried out. 
8. Excellence - Want what I do to be good, quality and integrity are important to me.

 No clue what your values are?  If I seem organized, it's because I spent six to nine months working with a career counselor to come up with all this "understanding".  If you can afford it, a career counselor can help get you organized. If not, try this exercise to help you define your values.

Write down ten or more things that are important to you. Rank them from 1 to 10. For each of your top 8 values, answer the following questions. (1)

1. What does the value mean to you? 
2. Describe a situation in which you experienced the value.
3. What does this value tell you that you want or need? 

Sit down and do this exercise and you will have a solid list of what you want and need to be happy at work.

See you next Friday....

1. Weisblatt, Sheila E., M.S. 1994   Defining your Values.

Career self-assessment - Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Reposition yourself to re-enter the workforce; join me on my personal branding journey.

Last week we touched upon the MBTI as an assessment tool that is often used for assisting in career choice and professional development.  In their interpretive guide (1), Hirsh and Kummerow describe how the MBTI functions as an organizational tool in a genereal sense - helping people in organizations to:

• understand themselves and their behaviors.
• appreciate others so as to make constructive use of individual differences.
• see that approaching problems in different ways can be healthy and productive for an org.

Specifically, organizations use the MBTI for:

• communicating more effectively
• solving problems
• improving teamwork
• understanding and adapting to differences in management style.
• understanding contributions to the organization.
• conflict resolution.

Again, I will use my type, INFP, as an example of what you can learn by doing this assessment.

INFP - Inroverted Feeling with Intuition (the questor)-

• Focuses on what might be, not on what is.
• is sympathetic and makes decisions based on values.

Leads by:

• promoting group effort through creation of a positive atmosphere and affirmation of individual members.
• eliciting group consensus to facilitate goals and closure.
• providing vision by speaking about ideals and values.

Irritates team members by:

• being overly perfectionistic or idealistic.
• appearing out of touch.
• becoming fiercely attached to a value not held by others.

Influences team members by:

• challenging, stimulating, provoking, and convincing.
• encouraging others to look at new possibilities.
• focusing on common ideals and underlying issues.

Contributes to team by:

• presenting provocative ideas with "big picture" possibilities.
• creating unity and harmony within the team by listening w/sensitivity.
• motivating and inspiring others to go beyond norm.
• supporting team members and team goals with quiet good humor.

Can Maximize effectiveness by:

• realizing others may value quick results, even if less than ideal.
• cultivating a logical and active orientation to use when needed.
• acknowledging the merit in others' viewpoints.

Is irritated by team members who:

• take themselves too seriously.
• require too much detail or technical logic gets in the way of understanding.
• won't admit when they don't understand an idea.
• won't pay attention to the overall goal and consider all opinions.

I feel this description really describes who I am and gets to the essence of  why I do things. If you do not feel your type description resonates with you, look around and see which type does. 

Next week I will examine several other assessment tools available, specifically Campbell Interest and Skill Survey (CISS) and Skillscan. 

1.  Hirsh, Sandra, K. and Kummerow, Jean. Introduction to Type In Organizations, 2nd edition., Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc., Palo Alto, CA.  1990.

See you next Friday...