What to Consider in Making Career and Job Choices.  So, what are the things that you should consider when making career or job decisions?  There is common agreement among most career experts that people need to consider their:

– Skills:  What abilities and talents do you we have that would allow you to perform at your best?  Some skills are natural, such as cognitive memory or eye-hand coordination.  You can learn many other skills such as reading a blueprint, or performing a delicate operation.  What experiences have you had that you enjoyed and at which you excelled?       What do you like best — working with data, people or things?

– Values:  Are you driven by a strong mission or purpose and want to fulfill that through your job/career?  What do you value highly?  What kind of work would allow you to do that? 

– Interests:  If you did what you loved, and the money would follow, what would capture your interest?  What are your hobbies?  What would you do, even if you had to work for free?

– Financial:  Compare to other work rewards, how important is money?  How much money do you want to make?  What are you willing to do to prepare for this?  Do you have the skills and temperament for the kind of work necessary to make this much money?

– Behavioral Style:  How do you prefer to interact with the world around you?  What is your behavioral style?  What are your behavioral strengths and limitations? What kinds of work would be a good fit for your personality?  What kinds of work environments (culture) would you find motivating? Most demotivating?

How can I find out more? If you are in the personal discovery mode and looking for more in-depth information about your job skills and other career related issues you may wish to:

– Gain experience through work or internships in career fields that interest you.

– Interview/observe at work  people in careers that interest you.

– Consult with your company’s human resources department, or a school counselor.

– Take a career exploration class commonly offered at local colleges and vo-techs.

– Browse the websites of colleges and vo-techs for programs that interest you.

– Seek vocational aptitude testing at your school, or state’s employment service office.

– Search the Internet for information and useful career assessments.

– Browse your library’s copy of the US Dept. of Labor’s Dictionary of Occupational Titles

– Read a couple of good books on the subject.       Two of my favorite ones are:

– What Color is Your Parachute (Latest revision), Ten Speed Press, by Richard Bolles.  This book is a practical manual for job-hunters and career changers.

– Discover What You’re Best At       (Latest revision), Fireside Book – Simon and Shuster, by Linda Gale.  This book offers a series of aptitude tests that will help you discover your true career abilities, and it suggests, by education level, typical careers that would fit your skills.

Conclusion:  My book We Hug in the Hallways Here is another useful resource for discovering more about you. The book is about the fit between your behavioral style and the requirements of your job, and it is about how to use that knowledge to select a career or find a job where you can be the most satisfied and productive.  To read the book’s introduction and table of contents, or to order your own copy, go to my website: www.wehuginthehallwayshere.com .  Use the coupon code “college” and get 20% off, for a price of $15.96.  The book is also listed www.Amazon.com .

My next blog topic:  What is behavioral style?  How can you determine yours?

Why is career selection so important?:  Career experts suggest that we should define ourselves by who we are, not by what we do. That’s a good guideline for happy living, but the work we choose is also hugely important because so much of our self-concept, happiness, and job-satisfaction are rooted in what we do. A good friend of mine, who spent his entire career as a vocational/career educator, says it best: “What we do is who we are, and a good part of what we do is our career.” If you don’t believe that ask someone how painful it is when he or she has a job where they are a “square peg in a round hole.” Is it any wonder that Richard Bolles’ book for job-hunters and career-changers, What Color is Your Parachute? has been a best seller for over thirty-five years?

What is a career? A job?:  For the sake of discussion I define a career as a person’s progress or general course of action through life, or through a phase of life as in some profession or undertaking such as: She ended her educational career as the superintendant of schools in the XYZ school district. A job is a position or assignment performed within one’s career such as: Over his career he held several jobs while serving the XYZ school district, including high school math teacher, assistant principal, principal, and superintendent of schools. Incidentally, due to a variety of forces most people can expect to make significant job/career changes at least eight times in their career!!  How many changes have you made?  Why did you make the changes?

What Should I Consider in Making Career and Job Choices?:  So, what are the things that we should consider when making career or job decisions? In my next blog, “Part 2 — How Do You Pick a Career?”, I’ll cover what career experts think people need to consider in their career decision making.

Conclusion: My book, We Hug in the Hallways Here, is a useful resource for discovering more about you. The book is about the fit between your behavioral style and the requirements of your job, and it is about how to use that knowledge to select a career or find a job where you can be the most satisfied and productive. To read the book’s introduction and table of contents, or to order your own copy, go to my website: www.wehuginthehallwayshere.com . Use the coupon code “college” and get 20% off, for a price of $15.96. The book is also listed on www.Amazon.com

My Next Blog Topic is: Part 2 — How Do You Pick a Career?

I suppose she thought I needed a warning, just in case. Actually, I saw it as good news! I like people and enjoy relating to them – even hugging them now and then. By contrast, I had just left a job in a company where hugging in the hallways would have earned you a spot on the shortlist of “company characters.” The culture there was impersonal, formal, and analytical. I am normally an enthusiastic, optimistic, expressive person. My job as a training manager there had its positive moments; where I could be myself, but if I wanted to be taken seriously I had to perform my job in a manner that was quite unnatural for me. Long term, this adaptation took its toll – I had lost touch with myself and was unhappy. I was a round peg in a square hole. Finally, I quit. In the new job, after a few hugs in the hallways, I quickly recovered and got in touch with the real me.

To put book in context I’d like to first tell how it came about. The idea came from participants in the behavioral style workshops I had been teaching for twenty-five years. Invariably, people would ask, “So, what kind of a job would be best for a person with my behavioral style?” or “Where would I fit best?” The short answer is, “You can be effective and satisfied in any job for which you’re qualified, BUT…”

This book is about the “BUT.” It is about the fit between your behavioral style and the requirements of your job. If it is a good fit, chances are you will be both satisfied and happy in your work. If the fit is not so good, you will have to adapt. And here’s the BUT — If that adaptation requires you get out of your behavioral comfort zone too far and too often, you will experience high stress and may be ineffective. That’s what I experienced at the formal, analytical company.

There are two key aspects of one’s work associated with behavioral style and job satisfaction/effectiveness. They are work- group culture and job role requirements. If you are in a workgroup culture that fits your style, chances are you will be happy. For example, if you are an active, assertive, hard-driving kind of person, and your coworkers are the same way, you will feel at home. On the other hand, if you are a more deliberate, methodical, analytical kind of person you will likely feel some level of stress in a culture like this.

In addition to work culture, the other aspect of work linked to job satisfaction/effectiveness is job role requirements. If your various job roles require behaviors from you that are natural and comfortable, chances are you will be satisfied and productive. Conversely, if you have to constantly stretch and moderate your behavior to meet the role requirements of your job, you will probably feel some level of stress and will not be as productive.

We Hug in the Hallways Here is about the fit between your behavioral style and the requirements of your job, and it is about how to use that knowledge to select a career or find a job where you can be the most satisfied and productive. To read the book’s introduction and table of contents, or to order your own copy, go to my website: www.wehuginthehallwayshere.com   Use the coupon code “college” and get 20% off, for a price of $15.96. The book is also listed on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Hug-Hallways-Here-Roger-Wenschlag/dp/159298262X

Look for the next blog topic: How Do You Pick a Career?