Pessimism, Choosing or Changing Careers, and Job Satisfaction

What expectations do you have in choosing a particular career, changing careers, or in life, for that matter? Alain de Botton's video about pessimism may put things in perspective - and make you more cheerful.  De Botton is a writer/public speaker who has been described as a "philosopher of everyday life." In this video, he talks about the over-romanticizing of work (and life) and the pitfalls of viewing everything through an optimistic lens.

Our 6 Principles of the Free Agent Worker complement some of his ideas in that we clearly say, "work is labor for pay."  Not very romantic, but sometimes you need to be realistic about what work truly is to achieve greater job satisfaction. Do you agree?


Alain de Botton - On Pessimism from The School of Life on Vimeo.

3 Creative Approaches to Gathering Career Option Information

With such poor or varying quality career information found online, it’s important to adopt a creative approach online. Here are 3 approaches to getting more useful, reliable & locally relevant information about the career options that interest you.

Listening to a public radio show this morning, I heard about the future of nursing. The pros and cons of associate degrees vs. bachelor’s & higher degrees in nursing was one topic. They had great information that I would definitely pass on to someone considering a nursing career.

How can you find information like this? Many might suggest Google “nursing” or “nursing career” but the career information on the web can be so poor, biased or locally irrelevant that it’s often best to try a different approach.

That’s true, especially in highly regulated careers that put you into close contact with other people & children like nursing, social work, fire fighting, teaching, etc. State and provincial governments are likely to have different requirements so where you intend to work is a big factor in your research.

Start first with our basic tips in “Learn About Occupations” and “Learn About the Jobs That Interest Me.”

Next, try these creative approaches (I used nursing as an example): 

1. Find Hot Topics
Find out the “hot topics” in a career field. Are you interested in learning about some of them - which ones and why? Ask yourself, what do my topic interests tell me about what part of this field might fit me best?
(Nursing examples) Healthcare reform, long term care, child nutrition, infection reduction in big hospitals, your state or province’s current issues with changes in government funding.

Find hot topics through informational interviews, subscribing to newsfeeds, social media, and Step #2 below.

2. Make Contact with Policy Making Organizations & Non-Profits
Look up the local and national policy makers & nonprofits related to a career field that interests you. Join up with them on social media and learn their language.  What are they talking about? What problems need to be solved?  Want to be part of the answer?

To find national organizations related to a career field (it's quicker than using a search engine), find the career's listing in the Occupational Outlook Handbook and click on "Sources of additional information". For local groups, do an Internet search using your state/city and the career field.  Like "Washington state" nursing.

3. Go Off the Reservation
Are there career options within a field that complement your other strongest Holland personality types you haven’t considered or know little about?

Don’t Limit Your Career Exploration to the “Nurse” Job Title
Average grades in biology, intimidated by nursing curriculum, don’t like needles, but still interested in nursing & health care? You can still work with nurses or in the health care industry (and with other Investigative personality types) without taking heavier science courses - if you truly don’t think you’re cut out for it. 

What about:

• getting involved in financial aspects of health care (If you’re also strong in Enterprising or Conventional)?
• lobbying local, state, or federal government on behalf of nurses? 
• Working for a union that represents nurses?
• Starting a business that helps improve nurses' and patients' lives?

These are all jobs that can pay well, where you work with the nursing community, but do not have to have strong science schooling.

Just to show how one thing leads to another...
Just using this Nursing radio show as an example, I looked up one of the presenters listed on the radio show website, who works for the Washington Center for Nursing.  They have a whole section describing Nursing Education in Washington. This section leads to other valuable information:

“You have various options to develop your career as a nurse. Which path you choose will depend on a combination of factors, including your location (or ability to relocate), which career you are planning (link to Nursing Practice - Roles in Nursing), your financial means, acceptance into a nursing program, and many others.”

That same webpage they even have a free PDF of “questions to ask when investigating nursing schools”.

One Last Career Information Recommendation: look for unbiased, non-commercial sources for career information. Know your source.  For example, be a skeptic when a school gives you information about a career (salary, job requirements, job outlook) while marketing itself as a direct route for a popular career area (nursing, construction, web designer...) Make sure you double check claims of strong need for certain jobs in your area.  Nonprofits have their biases too.

Missing Piece in College Retention Improvement Efforts

Significantly improving college retention is only possible when state and national policymakers consider increasing the number of students who choose a college major that fits their personality. Unfortunately, states and the federal government are making this personality-major match more difficult to achieve. Learn more by visiting our new "College Retention, Completion, and Graduation" article at The Career Key website.

UPDATE: our PRWEB college completion press release went out today (March 9, 2011).

Click here to download the new PDF report, "Key Piece in College Completion Missing: Personality Major Match," by Career Key author, Lawrence K. Jones, Ph.D., NCC.

For a long time, Dr. Jones has been active in the professional career development community, advocating for the use of scientifically valid assessments in career guidance. To download reprints of his articles on this issue published by the National Career Development Association and the American School Counselor Association, please visit our Press Room and click on the "Articles" section.

New College Majors E-Book: "Match Up! Your Personality to College Majors 2011"

Our new "Match Up! Your Personality to College Majors" e-book launched today is the first to show students and adults in a career change all college majors in the U.S. and Canada matching their Holland personality types. Career Key author Lawrence K. Jones, Ph.D., NCC and I coauthored the book.

Choose a college major based on your personality and interests.

That's what the research indicates. Major studies over the past ten years show that with a good match you are likely to,

• Earn higher grades,
• Stick with your choice of major through graduation,
• Graduate on time, and
• Be more satisfied and successful in your career.
  

Match Up! Your Personality to College Majors is the first and only book to take advantage of this research. It helps students and adults returning to school. It,

• Shows you college majors (and occupations) that fit your personality;
• Lists and describes all 1,400+ college majors and programs of study found in colleges and community colleges in the U.S. and Canada (with related jobs);
• Organizes them by Holland personality type, and
• Links you to the colleges that offer them.

Visit The Career Key and The Career Key Canada websites, and today's press release for more information.

SPECIAL LAUNCH PROMOTION: the first 20 people to "Like" The Career Key on Facebook* (or already Like us) and purchase (or have purchased in the past) The Career Key test, will receive the Match Up! e-book free of charge (a $14.95 value when purchased by itself).  Just send me an email with your test order # (U__) and I'll email you the book! My email is julietjones at careerkey.org.
*If you don't have a Facebook account (and don't want one), sign up instead as a Feedblitz email subscriber at the top of this blog.

We think once you've seen Match Up, you'll want to recommend and tell others about it. In addition to our reliance on real science and best-practices, remember that we are ad-free and have a 10% sales donation policy - so you can feel good about referring others to us.

Career Key Blog Featured on Career Digital List of Career Blogs

Thank you to Career Digital for inviting The Career Key Blog to join their rank of featured career blogs! Career Digital pulls together career and job search related news from the top career blogs. To try it out, you'll see in the righthand column of our blog a Career Digital button.  Click on it or on any of the topics listed and you can explore what they offer.

New College Major-Personality List Promises Better Grades & College Retention

Career Key is the first to classify all current college majors in the U.S. and Canada according to Holland's six personality types. Because research (PDF) shows that choosing a college major matching your personality predicts grades earned, persistence, and graduation rate, creation of this list of college majors is an important advance for students and college retention in general.

To learn more, please read the latest Press Release at PRWeb.

Top 2010 Green Jobs and Green Career Exploration Resources

For people exploring green job and green career options, here are my Best Green Jobs and Green Career Exploration Internet Resources for 2010:

1. 15 ways to rev up for a job that's good for the environment, fills your wallet, and makes a difference, from the American Solar Energy Society.  This advice is not limited to careers in the solar energy industry.  Honestly, I think this is one of the most helpful green job articles I've seen.
2. Match Your Personality to Green Jobs, at The Career Key website (yes, I'm biased, but you will not find Green Careers accurately organized by Holland personality anywhere else.) 
3. Careers in Wind Energy, an excellent, new article at the USDOL's Occupational Outlook Handbook website. Thanks to federal funding, more articles like this on other green careers are coming. 
4. "Green Economy" section of the O*NET's OnLine resource center.  Link directly by occupation to some of this information from "Match Your Personality to Green Jobs" at the Career Key website.
5. CareerOneStop's Explore Green Careers.  What I like about it is that you can explore careers in 12 green economy sectors, where for each occupation they will show you the level of education required and link you to local college and training programs.
6. Green Careers Resource Guide.  This free PDF eBook by Jim Cassio is a great resource with one exception, the "career assessments" section recommends free resources with an invalid Holland measure*. Otherwise, it's very helpful.
7. Job-Hunt.org's Green Industry Job Search Guide.  This series of articles covers a variety of helpful topics, including some I think are very needed but you don't find much about elsewhere like "Non-Technical Green Careers"and "Any Job can be a Green Job".
8. Khake.com's Environmental Career Guide.  Khake.com is one of my longtime favorite websites with so much great information - this environmental section is no exception.
9. About.com's Job Searching Green Jobs & Careers resources list. The "Job Searching" section of About.com is very comprehensive and helpful if your focus is on finding a green job right now.

*Career assessments on nearly all government websites like the O*NET and CareerOneStop are not scientifically valid (learn more ...), so I recommend taking a valid Holland measure (Career Key offers one, but is not the only one - ask a counselor or career development professional for recommendations), selecting careers and occupations at our website that match your personality, and then visit these other websites for career information.

If you can recommend other online resources that offer high quality green career exploration information (as opposed to job boards (more about job openings than career information), marketing gimmicks, or link farms), please let me know. I'd love to hear about it!