My Mom's Careers: A Celebration

Jeanine Wehr Jones, ESL Teacher

I'd like to take a moment to celebrate my mom's career paths: mother, elementary school teacher, librarian, ESL teacher, and Career Key supporter (helping my father, Dr. Lawrence K. Jones).  Thanks to her, I had a great childhood and an excellent role model. Being a mom, making a living, and keeping a household running smoothly is challenging. To read the whole story of Mom's career choices, please see my original Mother's Day post in 2010.

But I left out a critical part of the story - her part-time Berlitz International position teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) while raising my brother and me.  During that time, she had students from Japan, Egypt, Taiwan, El Salvador, Pakistan, and other countries.  She loves other cultures, different types of people, and learning their stories.

I remember as a kid having potlucks at our house with her students, sharing wonderful ethnic foods with friendly and warm company.  I know Mom enjoyed sharing her knowledge of Turkish cooking too.

Jeanine and her ESL students

Mom's vivacious personality wins over even the most shy of people; her humor is infectious.  So in the classroom she was able to liven things up while helping people feel comfortable learning a language in a different cultural world.

So I wish Mom a Happy Mother's Day and say thank you for working so hard to help other people while making our family and Career Key successful.

My Mom, Dad, and I, with our Vietnamese and Saudi Arabian
Career Key partners, at the International Counseling Congress in Istanbul, 2008

Will You Be Shut Out of Popular Education and Career Choices? 3 Tips for Career Planning Success

When changing careers or choosing a career, you may be considering a career option in which many people are interested. What if a required education program has too many applicants, a lot of prerequisites, or is just very selective?

Competition to get into some education programs required for in-demand careers can be stiff.  Funding is being cut for community colleges and public universities, making the situation worse. Take, for example, these statistics for a top career options like nursing:

American Association of Colleges of Nursing says 75,000 qualified nursing school applicants turned away in 2011. 

Dig deep into choosing a career, college major and training program – as early as possible. And once you know what’s involved and the better prepared you are, the better your chances of getting into the program you want.

3 Tips for Career Planning Success:

1.  Fully research your career options, including related occupations. Reading these Career Key articles will help:

• Getting Started (3 Steps to Choosing a Career) 
• Learn about Occupations 
•  Learn More About the Jobs that Interest Me 

How can you find similar occupations?

• Explore careers in the same Holland personality type and Career Key work group in Career Key’s “Match Your Personality with Careers” article. You can also do that during the Career Key's valid career test. If you are short on time or money, there may be similar occupations requiring fewer years of education. Maybe that career can be a stepping stone on the way to a final career goal.
• Click the “similar occupations” tab at the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) entry for a career. Try it with pharmacist.

Example:

On Career Key’s career lists, Pharmacist is found in the “Health Sciences” group under the Investigative personality type.  See all the related careers and groups.

OOH Entry for Pharmacist

2.  Fully research your education options, including different types of degrees/programs and the schools that offer them. The OOH will be a big help, especially the tabs “How to Become One” and “Contacts for More Info.” Make sure the program environment, what we call “college major environment” fits your personality. We recommend many ways to learn more about these environments.

How do you find good quality information about education programs?

Usually under the OOH's tab “Contacts for More Info,” it will link to a national association of the colleges or program providers for the required education and training programs. Rely on that organization website first before consulting commercial sites you find via Internet searches for “_____ degrees”

For example, the OOH's “Contacts for More Information” for Pharmacist links to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.  Under Resources and Student Center “Is Pharmacy for You?” I found a huge “Admissions” section with lots of informative FAQs and a whole free PDF book “Pharmacy School Admission Requirements” you can download.

 CareerOneStop’s “Education and Training Finder” can help you find information about education programs required for specific occupations located in your state, region or zip code too. 

3.  Have a back up plan if your first choices do not work out.

If you make a high-quality career decision (follow the link for 4 steps to follow and a free Decision Balance Sheet download), you’ll know what your backup choices are, information about them, and their pros and cons.

Even though it may cost more money to apply to more, less attractive schools, it's worthwhile insurance against rejection and disappointment.

And if you are unable to get into any school you are considering, working in the same industry that interests you (say Healthcare) but in a different occupation than you originally envisioned may open your eyes to new careers and opportunities you hadn’t known about.

It’s a challenge to stay positive and confident when career planning in a difficult economy. Adopting the Free Agent Outlook on Work may help – particularly principles 5 and 6:

5.  Be Loyal to Yourself and Your Family, and

6. Think “Right Thoughts.”

Career Key Career Test & New Career Information Links to the 2012-2013 Occupational Outlook Handbook

The Career Key's valid career test and online career assessment now links to the latest career information from the new 2012-13 Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) released late last week. When Career Key test takers create their personal job option list of matching occupations, each job or career is linked with career information (job requirements, education and training, salary, etc) from the new OOH.

New entry and look for "High School Teachers" in the Occupational Outlook Handboook.

Our career information update was also made to one of our most popular articles, "Match Your Personality with Careers." It shows hundreds of occupations by Holland personality type and Career Key work group.  Users of our paper-pencil Career Key career test often use this article to get online career information about matching careers and jobs that interest them.

Best features of the new OOH, in my opinion:

• It's easier to read, with the most important information clearly up front in the summary. (Pay, Education, Job Outlook);
• A Tab format for browsing with easy to understand labels like "What They Do" and "How to Become One";
• More attractive, photo-heavy listing of "Similar Occupations,"
• The content in "What They Do", "Work Environment," and "How to Become One" - the details are practical and helpful, truly giving a flavor of the work environment.

We have preferred the career information in the OOH to the O*NET for quite some time. There are some content differences and advantages to using both, which I explained in a June 2011 post:

"Comparing Top Career Information Resources: Occupational Outlook Handbook and O*NET's My Next Move."

Taking into account the new OOH look, my advice for exploring government career information is still the same: 

• Start with the OOH for better detail and quality of information; the new OOH format just makes it a lot easier to explore and navigate. 
• Use the O*NET (or America's CareerInfoNet) for links to more specific, local (state and metropolitan area) salary and education information.  

Join Career Key on Facebook to Share Fun, Interesting Career Choices

Starting today, Career Key is inviting our fans on the Career Key Facebook page to share success stories about people and their career choices who they think showcase Holland's Theory of Career Choice in action.  Our first suggestion is a person who combines his Social/Artistic personality with an occupation he created --  "Educating Rapper" - come watch the video! Sound interesting? Come and participate (we are offering free Career Key products to early birds). 

Embracing Facebook's new timeline look, Career Key's Facebook page has recently changed so if you haven't visited in awhile or haven't visited us yet, please do! I worked hard to figure out Facebook's new look so I appreciate any feedback.

Finally, if you "Like" us or leave comments, I promise we won't spam you (Honestly, we don't know how. I'm too afraid to offend people anyway).  We post about 2-3x a week - but we try for quality, not quantity.  So you won't be bombarded with messages in your news feed.

If you're big on social media, we have a Twitter Account too:  @TheCareerKey

Thank you for engaging with us!

Exploring Career Clusters and Career Pathways by Holland Personality Type

Need to choose a career cluster or pathway? If you'd like choose one based on your interests and strongest Holland personality types, look no further than Career Key's "Choose a Career Cluster, Field or Pathway" article.

The article guides you through the five steps of a good decision, including a free downloadable Career Key map of Career Clusters (see right).

You can also explore occupations listed by Holland type and Career Key work group, and their assigned career clusters.

Realistic Occupations and Their Career Clusters
Investigative Occupations and Their Career Clusters
Artistic Occupations and Their Career Clusters
Social Occupations and Their Career Clusters
Enterprising Occupations and Their Career Clusters
Conventional Occupations and Their Career Clusters

You can check off the occupations you like and bookmark or print the page to keep. When you "mouseover " the clusters at the right of each page, it shows you the career pathways for that cluster in a shaded box. Below is an example showing the pathways for the Architecture and Construction career cluster:

Like many others do, please take advantage of our "Share This" menu to email or share these pages on social media.

If you haven't taken a valid assessment of your Holland types yet, please take the Career Key career test. To see all the career pathways for the occupations and clusters you identified, you'll find them in our affordable 118 page PDF eBook, "5 Steps to Choosing the Right Career Cluster, Field, or Pathway". There is a special discount when you purchase the test and eBook together.

6 Critical Teamwork Job Skills and How to Develop Them

Teamwork job skills are necessary to getting hired, according to almost 80 percent of employers in the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Job Outlook 2012 survey. You need them, whether or not you are a “people person” and regardless of your career choice. The trick is to pick group activities you like with people holding similar interests to you. (Sound familiar? Think of people, leisure interests and work environments associated with your strongest Holland personality types)

So what are Teamwork Skills and how do you develop and use them in your career and job search?

First, read our quick overview of Foundation Skills and understand generally what they all are. You can download a free PDF of the 17 Foundation Skills for non-commercial use.   

In particular, look at the People Skills and the six “Teamwork” skills:

1. Working cooperatively with others;
2. Contributing to a group with ideas and effort;
3. Doing your own share of work;
4. Encouraging team members;
5. Resolving differences for the benefit of the team; and
6. Responsibly challenging existing procedures, policies, or authorities.

What kind of activities could you do to develop teamwork skills? Think about getting involved (if you aren’t already) in the community, a business, or in a school group. Here are some ideas to spark your creativity:

• Business: Organize a small business – it could be baby-sitting, yardwork, or a website selling custom T-shirts.  Working in a business with someone else, no matter how small, requires all the teamwork skills.
• Church: Participate in a team-oriented volunteer project in the community, help organize and put on holiday events, help supervise a donation drive (toys, food, diapers, etc).
• Hobbies: If you like building (or the idea of) legos or robots, find a local group – sometimes sponsored by a large local employer, and join in to participate and help with contests and exhibitions, organize a scrapbook accessories exchange at a local scrapbooking store, join another bike fanatic/mechanic to organize a spring "DIY Bike Fix Up" clinic.
• Sports: Get a group together for a charity run or walk, Serve as a volunteer coach for kids’ sports, help organize meets and games, fundraise for a charity league, participate in a school or master’s level sport.
• Music: Form a band, organize and give (free, fundraising) concerts or help musicians do so, volunteer for a music therapy program.
• School: Do a group project - either as a class assignment or create one, get involved in student government, start a new club, participate in service learning or volunteer groups, join a peer mentoring or tutoring group.
• Obstacle course or Outward Bound-type program.

BONUS: Many of these activities also help you develop other Foundation People Skills like Social, Negotiation, Leadership, and Cultural Diversity skills.

Once you develop teamwork skills, learn how to talk about them in a job or internship interview using the “PAR” method. Practice with another person or in front of a mirror how you would talk about your skills with an interviewer.

For more job skills help at The Career Key website, visit these articles:

Identify Your Skills

The Free Agent Outlook on Work

Personality-College Major Match Research in NCDA's February Career Convergence

The National Career Development Association (NCDA) looks at "personality-college major match" in the February issue of its web magazine Career Convergence, in the feature article, "Research Reveals that Personality-Major Match Strengthens Students' College Success."  In it, Career Key author Dr. Lawrence K. Jones, NCC describes the impact that personality and Holland's college major environments have on college performance.

The article also refers to two important, free white papers in an e-book format that explain the research and how to apply it to career and education decisions:

• "Personality-College Major Match and Student Success"(2011), (cover at left), a 28-page guide for professionals, and
• "Choosing a College Major Based on Your Personality: What does the research say?" (2010), a 29-page guide for students, adults returning to school, and parents.