Career Planning and Assessment for Career Practitioner

1. Career Planning
and Assessment
TECK L. TAN

2. Career Development Model
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Personal Career Branding
Job Search Documents
Social & Online Networking
Applications & Interviews
Work Experience
Create
Your
Future
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Decision Making
Goal Setting
Prioritizing Tasks
Action Planning
Reality Testing
Plan
Your
Actions
Know
Your
Value
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Values
Interests
Strengths
Personality
ambitions
Know
Your
Options
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Industry Trends
Occupational Research
Education Paths
Work Environments
Career Options

3. Top 10 Considerations in Career
Planning
1.
Education
2.
Work environment
3.
Future outlook
4.
Personality
5.
Aptitudes/skills
6.
Earning
7.
Interests
8.
Values
9.
Working conditions
10.
Career paths

4. What is the Ideal Job?

The right job enhances your life

It is personally fulfilling because it
nourishes the most important aspects of
your personality
Enhance
Your Life

It suits the way you like to do things and
reflects who you are

It lets you use your innate strengths in
ways that come naturally to you

It doesn’t force you to do things you
don’t do well
Your have
the skills to
do it
Use Your
Innate
Strengths
Ideal
Job
Suits your
personality
Suits your
interest

5. How Do You Know If You’re In the
Right Job

Look forward to going to work

Feel energized most of the time by what you
do

Feel your contribution is respected and
appreciated

Feel proud when describing your work to
others

Enjoy and respect the people you work with

Feel optimistic about your future

6. The Nature of Career Exploration

Career Planning is a long-term goal

Career planning is the planning of one’s life work that give meaning and
satisfaction over the life span

Career planning involves exploring alternatives, aiming to maximize future
success and satisfaction
Long term
goal
Give
meaning
Satisfaction
Exploring
alternatives
Nature of
Career
Planning

7. Career Exploration Stages
1.
Vocational Assessment
Self-assessment
b. Peer-assessment
c. Professional assessment
a.
2.
Occupational Exploration
a.
b.
c.
3.
Occupational Profiling
a.
b.
c.
4.
5.
Using a cross-walk classification system
Completing a series of career assessment inventories and tests
Talking with a professional career counsellor
Using occupational briefs and biographies
Talking with people who work in the occupation
Trying the occupation out yourself
Decision Making
Planning

8. Career Exploration

Assessment

Other Considerations
Other Considerations

Labour Market Search

Information Interviews

Work Experience

Decision Making

Action Planning
• Work Location
• Physical Demand
• Training Required
• Salary Range
• Aptitudes
• Work Values

9. Role of Assessment in Career
Planning

Assessments are used to help clients learn more about
their interest, values and skills

Assessment Instruments help clients understand their
career needs and possibilities so they can make wellinformed decisions about their future

Career assessment is a process and not just a product.

CDP plays an important role in this process by
o
Orienting clients to assessment procedures
o
Answering their questions about the purpose of specific instrument
o
Following through to help them use these results to explore and
make decisions about occupations and jobs suggested by the
results
Interests
Values
Skills

10. Comprehensive Vocational
Assessment
Aptitudes, Work
Values, Personalities
Interests, Physical
Conditions
Vocational Profiling
NOC, DOC, SOC
Occupational
Analysis
Career Planning

11. Aptitudes – Measure of Potential to
Learn an Activity
General
Learning
Ability
Verbal
Aptitude
Numerical
Aptitude
Spatial
Aptitude
Form
Perception
Clerical
Perception
Motor
Coordination
Finger
Dexterity
Manual
Dexterity

12. Terms

Assessment – covers the administration of many types of instruments

Instruments – general terms that includes both tests and inventories

Test – generally applied to a scientifically developed instrument that
measures ability (the potential to learn something) or achievement
(tests have answers that are right or wrong)

Inventory –used to describe a less formal questionnaire that is
designed to help individual learn more about themselves. (No right
or wrong answers for inventory). The assessments used in most
career development settings fall into this category

13. Relationship between Theory and
Assessment

Theory – an attempt to explain the factors involved in the career planning
process. Theories can help CDP know how to assist clients in identifying
what is important to them and what to consider when making a career
decision

Assessment are one of the “bridges” ta brings conceptual theories into
practice; they represent a way of putting into operation the theory’s
constructs

14. Holland’s Theory

Most people and work environments can be categorized by of
the six types

Goal of the instrument such as Interest profiler, and Self-Directed
Search, is seeking to define an individual’s Holland Code

The theory is the underlying foundation for the assessment and
the interpretation guidelines

Examples of assessment based on Holland’s Theory
o
Interest Profiler
o
Campbell Interest and Skill Survey
o
Career Liftoff
o
Interest Determination, Exploration and Assessment system

15. Super’s Theory

An individual’s career development is divided into a number of
development stages

Each stage has a list of specific tasks that should be accomplished
during that stage

When the tasks of a given stage are accomplished, an individual is
developmentally on schedule or mature and, therefore, is more
likely to accomplish the tasks of the next life stage

However, the individual is developmentally off schedule or
immature and may have difficulty in life stages that follow

Examples of Assessment based on Super’s Theory
o
Adult Career Concerns Inventory
o
Life-career Rainbow

16. Guidelines for Selecting and Using
Assessments

An assessment can be a potential harm to a clients
o
o

Assessments that do not fit their needs
Assessments that administered or interpreted improperly
CDP’s Responsibility about assessment
o
Understand and work within the ethical standards that apply to the use
of assessments
o
To practice only within the scope of the CDP’s role
o
To work only with those assessments you have been trained to use

17. What Instruments will be Most
Appropriate for your Clients
1.
What does the instrument cost?
2.
Who is your target audience?
3.
How will the results be used?
4.
What are the psychometric properties of the instruments, meaning the construction and
validation of the items?
5.
What format is best?
6.
How much time does the instrument take to administer and interpret
7.
How will the results be formatted and given to the student or client?
8.
Who will interpret the results and what are their qualifications?
9.
Is appropriate documentation provided?
10.
What do your colleagues think of this instrument and its publishers?

18. What Ethical Issues Need to be
Considered?

A career practitioner is limited to working with Level A assessments

Working with Level B or C instruments is not ethical without
completing additional training

Ethical Considerations
o
Ensure that assessment you are using has validity
o
Do not use material outside the copyright law
o
Do not share client’s information
o
Do no reproduce material without proper consent from publisher
o
Ensure your client is properly prepared for the assessment

19. Common Pitfalls of Career Planning

Overdependence on assessment instruments

Inadequate interpretation

Inappropriate use

Inadequate client preparation

20. How are Assessment Instruments
Used?
Four basic uses for assessment instruments in
career development

Career Exploration – exploring career
possibilities by first learning more about a
client’s interests, preferences, skills or values

Career Decision Making – helping clients make
effective career decision by understanding
their decision-making style and identifying
potential barriers (Career Beliefs Inventory)

Educational Planning – determining
educational progress and identifying needs or
problems (WorkKeys)
Career
Exploration

Career Adjustment – helping clients to make
their current jobs as satisfying and productive
as possible (Job Survival and Success Code)
Career
Adjustment
Assessment
Usage
Educational
Planning
Career
Decision
Making

21. What are Formal Assessments?

Formal assessments are inventories or tests that have been
developed by experts according to scientific principles of test
construction, also called standardization. It involves specific steps
that must be followed in developing, administering, and interpreting
them. They typically produce scores or score profiles as part of their
results

22. Overview of Factors in Formal
Assessments

Type of assessment to use

Types of scores

Level of difficulty

Credentials need to administer
Type of
Assessment
Administration time

Credential
Required
Level of
Difficulty
Admin
Time
Types of
Scores

23. Major Categories of Formal
Assessments
Interest

Interest Inventories

Ability Tests
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Work Values Inventories
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Personality Inventories
Ability
Skills Inventories

Maturity

Career Beliefs and Thoughts
Inventories

Beliefs
Skills
Thoughts
Career Maturity Inventories
Personality
Work
Values

24. Informal Assessments
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Force-choice Activities
Card Sorts
Checklists or Structured Worksheets
Guided Imagery
Transferrable Skills Activities
Checklists of Interests, Values, Abilities
Interviews
Group Discussions
Writing Samples
Observation of Skills Being Demonstrated
Job Shadowing

25. Informal Assessments

Informal assessments are subjective

Informal assessments sometimes require more time to administer

Informal assessments demand thoughtful interpretation

The validity of most informal assessments may be questionable

26. Comparison of Formal and Informal
Assessments

Formal assessments
o
Standardized and structured
o
Validity, reliability, and bias
o
Additional training usually
required

Informal Assessments
o Easier to use
o Less specialized training
o Subjective/Open to
greater interpretation

27. 7 Steps in Working with Assessments
1.
Determine whether assessment would be helpful to the client
2.
Select the instrument or instruments best suited to the client’s needs
3.
Prepare the client for assessments
4.
Administer the assessment
5.
Interpret and use the results
6.
Maintain records
7.
Practice only within your boundaries/competencies level (A,B,C)