Career and Job Outlook for the Artistic Personality Type

Careers associated with the Artistic Holland personality type are some of the hardest to pursue – and the most rewarding.

You won’t find any purely Artistic careers on any fast growing occupations lists. Competition is high and money-making opportunities slim.

But if you are open-minded and creative, look for ways to combine your two highest personality types – Artistic and [your second top personality type] in a promising career field.

Examples of putting together Artistic interests with high demand career options:

Scientific Photographer
Teaching, [your artistic interest here - dancing, sculpture...]
Commercial and Industrial Designer
Art Director

I know compromise is a tough sell, especially to someone with a dream of artistic freedom. I’ve blogged before about my grandfather’s struggle with commercialism and making a living while fulfilling his artistic potential as a sculptor. (see his legacy at wehranimations.com) I’m not saying give up on the dream – there are plenty of examples that persistence pays off – but to keep your options open.

To get started, get your scientifically valid Career Key scores for the 6 personality types. Then look at your Career Key job matches and check the job outlook for each career that interests you.

From the Career Key test and website, you’ll find direct links to the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) from each career you choose to explore. Each OOH description of a career includes a job outlook section, that in turn links to state specific labor market information. Career Key Canada provides the similar links to Job Futures with employment prospect information.

If what you see in the OOH or Job Futures is not promising or you want to consider other options, read on…

Top Artistic Career Key work group* picks for promising job prospects:
3.02 Visual Arts
3.05 Communications

* The Career Key organizes matching careers in unique, easy to use work groups by interests, skills, and abilities.

These Artistic careers are listed as “InDemand” by the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*Net. See the Career Key work group in ( ):

Commercial and Industrial Designer (3.02)
Graphic Designer (3.02)
Interior Designer (3.02)
Multi-Media Artist or Animator (3.02)
Technical Writer (3.05)

Use the Career Guide to Industries to learn more about Artistic occupations in:
Advertising and Public Relations Services
Arts, Entertainment and Recreation
Broadcasting
Motion Picture & Video Industry
Publishing (except software)
and other industries that interest you.

In Canada, please see this list of the best Canadian job prospects in 2009:
For Artistic occupations, see
Managers in Art, Culture, Recreation & Sport
Managers in Architecture…
Web Designers & Developers

Next post: Job Outlook for the Social Personality Type. Want to see the previous posts in this series for the Realistic and Investigative personality types? Start with my introductory post in Your Career Options Job Outlook Cheat Sheet.

Source: Tomorrow’s Jobs, 2006-16, U.S. Department of Labor.

The Best Way to Choose a College Major or Training Program

There are a lot of websites that talk about choosing a college major and tell you what to major in. But The Career Key is the only website to offer majors advice based on solid science and independent research proven to lead to a successful education decision. We just launched the most comprehensive resource out there - and it's affordable and easy to use.

Why does The Career Key offer the best way to choose a college major or post secondary program? Unlike other approaches it:

1. Uses a scientifically valid career test to match your interests and personality with majors and training programs;
2. Offers you the most education choices (all of the 1,400+ college majors and training programs listed by the U.S. and Canadian governments);
3. Shows you careers related to educational programs that match your personality;
4. Shows you accurate, comprehensive, up to date information about each career;
5. Organizes all the programs and careers in a unique way developed by recognized vocational expert Dr. Lawrence K. Jones that is easy to explore; and
6. Links you to a description of each major and program that interests you.
7. All this information only costs $14.50 when you purchase the eBook, The Education Key: Choosing the Right College Major, Training, or Instructional Program, and The Career Key test together. And we offer a special, affordable group discount for both.
   

To learn more, read the full "Choosing a College Major, Training, or Instructional Program" article at The Career Key website and visit our eBookstore.

But don’t take our word for it. Independent published research with over 130,000 students at 112 colleges and universities link college success (higher GPA, increased graduation rate, and higher post graduation earnings) to matching one’s Holland personality to majors. Download our Summer 2009 newsletter to see the studies and links to them.

And last but not least, we are the only career guidance company to donate 10% of our sales to charity. Learn more by clicking on Donations at Quick Links on The Career Key home page.

I know I am being majorly guilty (pun intended) of self-congratulations here - but it's hard to not be proud when you offer such a high quality, unique, and affordable product that does good in the world.

Please spread the word to friends and colleagues because we do not do direct advertising or onsite ads (we give money to charity instead).

Thanks to iPhoto for the great photo above.

Theory vs. Reality in the Grad School Decision

Because I'm interested in education, I read the recent NYT's Room for Debate online panel discussion, "Do Teachers Need Education Degrees?" Basically it spiraled into education reform arguments: what makes a good teacher? A degree or experience? Views were so passionate that one writer even used the word "baloney!" Wow.

And never mind all the theory and abstract discussion. If my predominant Holland personality type is Social and I decide that I want to be a middle school teacher, what does all this mean for me?

This controversy leads to 3 observations:

1. Research your state and local teaching certification requirements.
2. Informational interview at least 3 teachers in your geographic area at different types of schools (public, private, charter) who work in the subjects that interest you. Do they have a grad degree? What impact does it have on the hiring process? Where did they get theirs? What lessons did they learn?
3. Be critical when evaluating educational programs' claims and promises. As noted in the NYT article, school administrators do not view all programs as created equal.

We suggest many more activities to learn about the jobs that interest you at our website.

Both my parents were teachers so I can appreciate the complexity and challenges (and rewards) of this career choice. Along those lines, any typos or grammatical mistakes you find in this blog are not my parents' fault!

Online Chinese Career Key Found Effective & Helpful in New Study

The online Chinese Career Key has been found effective and very helpful to public high school students in Hong Kong in a new study described in the September 2009 issue of the Career Development Quarterly, the official journal published by the National Career Development Association.

"A Preliminary Study on the Effectiveness of the Chinese Career Key Online (CCK)" was conducted by Dr. Siu-Man Raymond Ting, Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education at North Carolina State University.

The study found:

• "[p]reliminary evidence that the CCK Online has an acceptable internal consistency with the RIASEC scales..."
• "The CCK Online measures very similarly to the CCK paper-and-pencil version."
• "When compared to SDS scores, the CCK Online scores show moderately strong to strong criterion validity with the RIASEC Score correlations..."
• "...students seem to be highly satisfied with the technology, usability, and helpfulness."

"This study suggests that the CCK Online has good preliminary reliability and validity for exploring and screening occupational interests..."

Full citation:
Ting, S.-M. R (2009, September). A Preliminary Study of the Effectiveness of the Chinese Career Key Online. Career Development Quarterly, 77, 80.

For more information about the study, please contact Dr. Ting using the link above. For more information about using the Chinese Career Key, please contact me: julietjones at careerkey.biz.