Know Yourself

Self-assessment is the process of "knowing yourself." It involves taking an inventory of your likes, dislikes, personal characteristics, values, wants, and needs. It is the first part of the career management process. Before you can decide what you want to be, you first have to discover who you are. People are constantly changing, growing, and developing. Therefore, it is necessary for everyone to re-assess themselves periodically in relation to their career goals.

Interests

Personality

Skills

• Transferable or functional skills ─ Skills that can be transported from one job to another.

• Self-management or adaptive skills ─ Skills or strengths developed through life and work experience, or from exposure to role models. They are also behaviors learned in families and from significant others. Certain self-management skills are very important in some occupations, less important in others.

• Technical or work content skills ─ Skills that are learned through training and often can be applied only to a narrow range of occupations. Recognizing the satisfaction generated from using these skills can sometimes indicate alternative career choices.

Abilities

Work Values

Lifestyle & Financial Considerations

Preferred Work Environment

Career development theorist John Holland, Ph.D., developed a theory of career choice based on the following premises:

• Six themes of people and work environments, within which all jobs can be classified:

—  Realistic

—  Investigative

—  Artistic

—  Social

—  Enterprising

—  Conventional

• Career satisfaction depends on the compatibility between your personality and your work environment.

According to Holland, workers are not passive victims of their environments, but actively seek potentially compatible work environments. If your personality and the work environment “fit”—that is, if your personality is congruent with your work environment—you will most likely enjoy your work, and you will develop and grow in your career.

Think about your interests, personality, and skills, and then determine which occupational theme(s) sound the most consistent with your personality. You can also use formal or informal assessments to determine which themes fit you. Note that everyone fits to some degree in more than one occupational theme. Therefore, it is important to look at which themes rank as the top three. Combining the first letter of each of these three themes makes up what is called the Holland code.

To form a Holland code, take the first letter of the occupational theme that best describes your personality (R=Realistic, I=Investigative, etc.), then the first letter of the second highest theme, and finally the first letter of the third highest. For example, if your interests rank in the order of 1) Artistic, 2) Investigative, and 3) Social, your Holland code would be AIS. When exploring careers with Holland profiles that relate to your Holland code, consider careers that have any combination of that 3-letter code—e.g., AIS, ISA, ASI, SAI, etc.

You can briefly determine your Holland code with this self assessment exercise , or in addition consider a self-assessment tool or instrument. Formal assessments based on the Holland theory include the Strong Interest Inventory (SII), the Self-Directed Search (SDS), and the Career Key™. Some informal assessments have also been developed around the Holland theory, including “The Party Game” from What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles and “Let’s Make a Deal” from Real People, Real Jobs by Montross, Liebowitz and Shinkman.

Once you've determined your Holland code, you can begin to explore careers and the education or training required to be successful.

Step 1:  For each theme, check those items that describe you.

My top 3 categories/themes are: ______, ______, ______.

Step 3:  How accurately do you believe your (3) top themes describe your personality and interests?

REALISTIC people are characterized by competitive/assertive behavior and by interest in activities that require motor coordination, skill, and physical strength. People oriented toward this role prefer situations involving "action solutions" rather than tasks involving verbal or interpersonal skills. They like to take a concrete approach to problem-solving rather than relying on abstract theory. They tend to be interested in scientific or mechanical rather than cultural and aesthetic areas.

INVESTIGATIVE people prefer to think rather than to act, to organize and understand rather than to persuade. They are not apt to be very "people oriented."

ARTISTIC people value self-expression and relationships with others through artistic expression. They dislike structure, prefer tasks involving personal or physical skills, and are more prone to expression of emotion than others. They are similar to investigative people, but are more interested in the cultural-aesthetic than the scientific. SOCIAL people seem to satisfy their needs in teaching or helping situations. In contrast to investigative and realistic people, social types are drawn more to seek close interpersonal relationships and are less apt to engage in intellectual or extensive physical activity.

SOCIAL people have high interest in other people and are sensitive to the needs of others. They perceive themselves as liking to help others, understanding others, and having teaching abilities. Social people value social activities, social problems, and interpersonal relationships. They use their verbal and social skills to change other people’s behavior. They are generally cheerful, scholarly, and verbally oriented.

ENTERPRISING people are verbally skilled and use this skill in persuasion rather than support of others. They also value prestige and status and are more apt to pursue it than conventional people.

CONVENTIONAL people don't mind rules and regulations and emphasize self-control. They prefer structure and order to ambiguity in work and interpersonal situations. They place value on prestige or status.

Based on John L. Holland's Making Vocational Choices: A Theory of Careers (Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Prentice Hall, 1973). The formal validated assessment instrument using John Holland's theory is the Self-Directed Search, available from PAR, Inc.