Six Tips for Understanding Your Career Values

When picking a college major or a career training program, assess what's important to you in a job. But please, don't make your values assessment a stress-inducing process. Your values are apt to change over time, as you gain experience in college and in life. This is the very reason why so many students change college majors; a third of them change majors more than once! To edit a famous writer's expression, "when you know better, you CHOOSE better"!
When you know yourself well, your values will:

• Keep you focused and motivated
• Help you make good decisions based on a sense of purpose, and
• Bring you a sense of fulfillment

What are career values? Here are a few:

- Being needed and appreciated
- The location and environment where you want to work
- Gaining new skills and experience
- Working with people you respect and who you admire.

It can be difficult -- maybe impossible -- to have ALL your values met by a single job, but if you know which values are MOST important, you can feel more at peace and committed when you make career decisions. You will see clearly what you may have to trade-off, perhaps only temporarily, in order to get your most important needs met.
Here's how to assess your values. Don't rush this process. Like any creative techniques, it takes time. Complete a couple of steps, set your writing aside and come back to it several days later. Or, carry it with you, take it out when you have a little time to yourself and read it over. When you make a habit of reflecting like this, I think you'll be surprised at the ideas that will come to you naturally, as you go about your regular activities.

1. Make a list of all the things you love. Don't judge the list; just write as many things are you can come up with. Then:
2. List all the times you felt fulfilled and happy about something you did. Now:
3. Compare both lists. Do you see anything in common? So:
4. Make a list of the values and qualities that you see represented on both lists.
5. Carry these keywords with you. Take them out when you have a moment to yourself. Which ones really mean something to you? Do they make you feel like taking some sort of action?
6. And don’t judge yourself or let yourself become stressed, even by this exercise. This is your time. Your privacy. Your chance to learn about yourself, which is a key driver for success and happiness.

You Control the The "You" Factors in Career Planning

Don’t know what you want to be when you grow up?

If you’ve already graduated from high school, you may not know yourself well enough to give a career counselor all the information he or she needs to help you.

He or she will probably suggest one or more of the most reliable career assessments: perhaps the Strong or Campbell Interest Inventories. They’re quick, a good investment and the results statistically represent your age group results. Or, a career counselor could use a values assessment, to determine what’s important to you and where you could find those qualities in a job.

These assessments work on the premise that you will be successful at things you like, and believe in. That’s very true, but how do you know what you COULD be good at, and interested in, if you never get exposed to new ideas and get a chance to try them out? For young adults, in particular, assessment results are limited to what they’ve been exposed to up until now.

The most sophisticated tests used to guide career planning are available through a psychologist or someone trained in tests of personality, ability (like the DAT for PCA) and intelligence. Still, the results here are somewhat fixed, and speak only to the potential for you to fit a career. They’re more apt to help an employer make decisions, not you.

Even if you could get interested in a new skill, there is a ticket to admission into this career path: Your skills may have to be developed. Should you go to college, or to a career center? Or somewhere else?

Discouraged? Please don’t be!

Yes, these decisions are expensive, both in time and money. And, like any service, even a medical doctor, your career counselor needs your direction and thoughtful responses to their questions. No one can give you all the answers.

The thing to remember is that you are in charge of this process; not the professionals. And it’s a lifelong process. That’s why so many college students change majors; many more than once. And so many college students are undecided about a major. Many college graduates never pursue the job that they went to college for. Any many adults change careers.

As you move through your work life, you will make better decisions when you understand all the factors that uniquely drives your satisfaction in a job: interests, abilities, personality, and values. You’ll be more motivated and confident about the investment you might need to make in training or education. Our Career Explor-a-tion workshop might just be a good place to start! Write to info@whatsyourmajor.net