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.  

What Job is Best for Me? 2012 Career Decision E-Book Now Available

"What Job is Best for Me? How to make a decision you won't regret," our most popular career decision e-book, has just been updated for 2012, expanded to 97 pages.

In "What Job is Best for Me?" Career Key author Dr. Lawrence K. Jones guides people through their career decision, relying on methods, information and techniques based on the latest research and career counseling practices.

The e-Book includes recommended activities for the critical four steps to choosing the right career:

1. Consider all the Alternatives,
2. Weigh the Consequences of each,
3. Search for Information about each choice, and
4. Make details Plans.

In the 2012 edition, we added two new sections of advice related to education: "Choosing a College Major" and "Learning about Training and Education Options." Readers can take advantage of recent research on personality-major match and learn how it fits in with choosing a career.

You can purchase "What Jobs is Best for Me?" for $8.95 in our eBookstore.  When you add The Career Key career test, you get a 20% total discount over separate purchases: both for $14.95.

Career Clusters, Career Pathways & Our Updated E-Book

"5 Steps to Choosing a Career Cluster, Field, or Pathway" has just been updated. It includes the most recent updates to The Career Key test and the most recent assignments of Career Clusters and Career Pathways found on O*NET OnLine.

Found in our eBookstore, "5 Steps" costs $9.95 with a special discount for purchasing both the Career Key test and the e-Book together.

Career Key's approach is to use its valid assessment of Holland's six personality types to match students to occupations, then to the clusters and pathways related to those occupations.

Our e-book is the only one that matches students' interests in this way. We also have a free online article called "Choosing a Career Cluster, Field or Pathway" with a free downloadable Career Key Map of the 16 Career Clusters.

The 16 Career Clusters and 79 Career Pathways are not organized by interests (but by industries and required skills, knowledge). So it's important to give students a scientifically valid way to match their interests to occupations within those clusters and pathways.

I uploaded to YouTube a video overview of Career Key's Career Clusters and Career Pathways resources, including the new version of the e-book.



If you are interested in Career Clusters and Career Pathways, you might read these related blog posts:
Career Clusters Interest Survey Validity Questioned by Study
NCDA Article on Using Interests to Organize Matching College Majors, Career Clusters and Pathways
NCDA (National Career Development Association)

Please see the related press release, "Career Key's Updated e-Book Enables Students to Choose the Best Career Cluster and Career Pathway."

The Career Key Career Test Adds New Occupations

We just updated the career options and occupations listed in The Career Key career test to keep pace with changes in our economy and the world of work.

For all six Holland personality types (RIASEC), test takers will get to choose from:

• Occupations with a real future, most with a positive job outlook; and
• A variety of occupations with different skill and education requirements.

Here are a few samples of new occupations we added:

Realistic: Railroad Yardmaster
Investigative: Network Engineer
Artistic: Medical and Scientific Illustrator
Social: Nurse Informaticist
Enterprising: Medical and Health Services Manager
Conventional: Production, Planning, or Expediting Clerk

These occupations were also added to our self-scoring, paper-pencil version of The Career Key test, found in our eBookstore.

Other related and helpful Career Key articles:

• Getting Started Choosing a Career
• Career Change, Changing Careers
• Identify Your Skills
• Military to a Civilian Career
• Choosing a College Major or Training Program
• How Parents Can Help

Here is the full PRWeb press release announcing the new career options in our career test...