Outside of the skeletal-muscular abilities that enable performance on the job, every other competency that support our ability to perform our job may well be based on a biological function. Pheremones have been shown to elicit hormonal responses (colloquially known as arousal). We are most agreeable with people who remind us of our parents, suggesting that we might be trying unconsciously to sustain favorable genetic traits (though this also results in perpetuating cycles of abuse). Oxytocin is released in the brain when we are with the one we love, resulting in a calming effect (an emotion described as love). We also now know that memories are created by the formation of proteins, and memory is key to learning.
Anyone who really wants to excel in the application of competency-based human capital management must take the time to learn more about the function of the brain and how it affects human emotions, learning, personalities, and behaviors.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Competency Categories
Has the term "competency", as it refers to personal factors that enable individual performance, become too broad? Let's begin by asking the question, "What factors are NOT competencies?"
First, we can eliminate the external factors. Those are "facilitators" of performance. (The opposite would be "barriers" to performance just as the opposite of competencies would be "weaknesses".) External factors (e.g. resources, processes, information, rewards, etc.) can have a clear impact on the ability and/or willingness of an individual to perform, but the term "competency" includes only the factors that are elements of an individual person's make-up. External facilitators of performance are not competencies.
So what is a person made of? And which of those elements affects the capacity to perform? Through my research and experience I have identified the following categories:
Abilities
Physical (body or brain) traits that enable performance are called abilities. If a task requires one to lift a certain weight without aid of an external resource then the "performer" must have the capacity to lift weight. This ability is comprised of the muscle strength required, as well as the appendages required, to lift. The brain must also be able to interpret the instructions. Therefore, intelligence sufficient to grasp and act on the instructions is also an ability. However, intelligence, as a physical function of the brain, is not the only mental trait that is critical. For example, judgment is a competency that is based on knowledge rather than intelligence. Data storage is different from intellectual horsepower, but they are interdependent on one another when we need to leverage them.
Knowledge
The brain stores facts and generalizations about the world around us. For example, some of the information that we store allows us to understand and speak a language. Information comes from our personal interpretation of each event that unfolds in our life. Experience itself is not a competency so much as the knowledge we have gained from each experience is. This is most clear when we find that someone has learned a lesson from an experience that is contrary to what we expected. Do you know anyone that has graduated from college or passed a specific certification test, but who is not as good at a job as someone who learned from the "school of hard knocks" (general life experience on the streets)? Performance requires us to collect data and convert it into usable information so knowledge is a competency.
Skills
Skills are techniques that an individual has learned and intentionally applies to a given situation. The three most common academic skills are reading, writing, and arithmetic (computation). However, there are also gross motor skills such as riding a bicycle. An example of a combination of both skills would be using a specific software application (reading and typing). Many interpersonal traits are also learned skills (e.g. listening is a skill, hearing is an ability). Once a person becomes fluent at a skill they no longer consciously practice it. They just do it. When someone does not know how to do something that they never even knew was possible, they are unconsciously incompetent. After they learn of the skill's existence they are consciously incompetent. As they learn the skill they pass from being a novice to being proficient to being an expert. At some point they may just begin to use the skill without even thinking about it. That level of unconscious competence may be called a habit, but habits are also things that we unconsciously do in response to some stimulus as part of a regular routine. For example, Pavlov's dogs salivated when he rang the bell because they associated the bell ringing with being fed. Skills rely on knowledge and ability because you must have memory of prior experiences, if any, with the skill and the ability to execute the skill in order to use or improve the skill.
Instincts
Instincts are things that we never learned, but that we innately know how to do. Pavlov's dogs were not born salivating when a bell rang. However, they did know how to mate once they reached a certain point of maturity (without anyone teaching them). Unlike skills, you cannot increase your levels of expertise in a given instinct. Reflexes are not instincts, they are reactions of the nervous system, which makes a reflex an ability. Instincts are independent of memory, experience, and all other competency categories. Physically, learning is required to strengthen connections between synapses when abilities are developed, but instinctual behavior does not improve neurological wiring. Examples of human instincts include the facial expression associated with the person's emotional state (e.g. smiling when happy), staring at the threat when becoming aggressive, eyebrows flinching when recognizing someone or something, and how someone's posture changes when they are mentally preparing to leave. Instincts are responses to stimuli that we cannot control or unlearn so they are not useful when we are analyzing performance, but they are related to many performance situations (e.g. body language when delivering sales pitches).
Drives
Urges that are present at birth or develop over time, but that can be overridden by logic are called drives. Drives are genetically influenced behaviors (e.g. fight or flight). People are influenced by drives much more than by instincts because we have eliminated many of the instincts that lower animals possess. Genes can be influenced by external stimuli over multiple generations and we have simply bred out the lack of control. We now choose to succumb (as opposed to not having a choice) to urges that are instinctual in most animals (e.g. maternal - we give up children for adoption, territorial - we sell our houses, imprinting - we get divorced). Drives can be critical to performance because half of any performance equation is the "willingness" to perform.
Values
Willingness to perform is also based on our values (e.g. there are certain products that some people simply refuse to sell). Values are deeply held beliefs that are manifested as preferences or susceptibilities. Values generally fall into the following categories: moral, ideological, social, and aesthetic. Values influence the development of other competencies, but are separate from the other categories. While many values are collectively shared by common groups (e.g. religious ideologies), they are also modified based on personal experience (e.g. materialism is most prevalent in people who did not actively participate in groups in their youth). Values are often manifested as norms that are reinforced by one's cultural upbringing (e.g. the value of respect during mourning is expressed by the norm of wearing black).
Attitudes
Attitude is another category that impacts a performer's willingness. Attitude is the liking, dislikeing, or conflicted combination of liking and disliking something. Attitudes are reactions to our beliefs, which have predominantly developed over time based on our experiences. Attitudes are more susceptible to change than personality and other people can persuade us to change an attitude through communication. Attitude is an important competency category because not only is it physical (just like long-term memory, attitude resides in the affective and cognitive nodes in the brain), it is a critical element of decision-making - commonly referred to as intuition or "gut reaction". The more important the performance is to you, the greater the impact of attitude has on your performance.
Personality
Everyone has a past. Even within the same family we have unique experiences that shape our perception of the world and the preferences that are manifested as our personality. Like several of the other categories, personality can and does change over time. Personality is not fully understood, and thus, there are a variety of theories about the causal factors behind someone's personality, what elements constitute the description of a personality, and how one can measure a personality. The Big Five is the closest that psychologists seem to have come thus far in creating a model that identifies how personality affects our ability to perform (and even then, only one of the five factors - conscientiousness - seems to be strongly correlated to performance). Though it is extremely complex and not well understood, it is generally accepted that performance requires certain preferences or personality traits.
Emotions
Skills and intelligence are often enhanced by the performer's mental state. This has given rise to the popularity of such concepts as emotional intelligence. Mental health includes competencies that are both personality traits and emotional states. However, these are clearly unique constructs. Hunger and sadness are not points along a continuum. Hunger is an ability because it is physical in nature. Sadness is an emotional state (which certainly may have been induced by a physical state) that probably resides within the limbic system and/or prefrontal cortex. Emotions can trigger physical traits, such as sadness leading to tears, but they are separate attributes because tears can be released when the dominant emotion is joy. There has been recent research into specific chemicals in the brain that are described as the root of romantic love. Though that research may help clarify some of the root causes of emotions, it does not mean that emotions are simply abilities because they are far too complex to be described as such.
First, we can eliminate the external factors. Those are "facilitators" of performance. (The opposite would be "barriers" to performance just as the opposite of competencies would be "weaknesses".) External factors (e.g. resources, processes, information, rewards, etc.) can have a clear impact on the ability and/or willingness of an individual to perform, but the term "competency" includes only the factors that are elements of an individual person's make-up. External facilitators of performance are not competencies.
So what is a person made of? And which of those elements affects the capacity to perform? Through my research and experience I have identified the following categories:
Abilities
Physical (body or brain) traits that enable performance are called abilities. If a task requires one to lift a certain weight without aid of an external resource then the "performer" must have the capacity to lift weight. This ability is comprised of the muscle strength required, as well as the appendages required, to lift. The brain must also be able to interpret the instructions. Therefore, intelligence sufficient to grasp and act on the instructions is also an ability. However, intelligence, as a physical function of the brain, is not the only mental trait that is critical. For example, judgment is a competency that is based on knowledge rather than intelligence. Data storage is different from intellectual horsepower, but they are interdependent on one another when we need to leverage them.
Knowledge
The brain stores facts and generalizations about the world around us. For example, some of the information that we store allows us to understand and speak a language. Information comes from our personal interpretation of each event that unfolds in our life. Experience itself is not a competency so much as the knowledge we have gained from each experience is. This is most clear when we find that someone has learned a lesson from an experience that is contrary to what we expected. Do you know anyone that has graduated from college or passed a specific certification test, but who is not as good at a job as someone who learned from the "school of hard knocks" (general life experience on the streets)? Performance requires us to collect data and convert it into usable information so knowledge is a competency.
Skills
Skills are techniques that an individual has learned and intentionally applies to a given situation. The three most common academic skills are reading, writing, and arithmetic (computation). However, there are also gross motor skills such as riding a bicycle. An example of a combination of both skills would be using a specific software application (reading and typing). Many interpersonal traits are also learned skills (e.g. listening is a skill, hearing is an ability). Once a person becomes fluent at a skill they no longer consciously practice it. They just do it. When someone does not know how to do something that they never even knew was possible, they are unconsciously incompetent. After they learn of the skill's existence they are consciously incompetent. As they learn the skill they pass from being a novice to being proficient to being an expert. At some point they may just begin to use the skill without even thinking about it. That level of unconscious competence may be called a habit, but habits are also things that we unconsciously do in response to some stimulus as part of a regular routine. For example, Pavlov's dogs salivated when he rang the bell because they associated the bell ringing with being fed. Skills rely on knowledge and ability because you must have memory of prior experiences, if any, with the skill and the ability to execute the skill in order to use or improve the skill.
Instincts
Instincts are things that we never learned, but that we innately know how to do. Pavlov's dogs were not born salivating when a bell rang. However, they did know how to mate once they reached a certain point of maturity (without anyone teaching them). Unlike skills, you cannot increase your levels of expertise in a given instinct. Reflexes are not instincts, they are reactions of the nervous system, which makes a reflex an ability. Instincts are independent of memory, experience, and all other competency categories. Physically, learning is required to strengthen connections between synapses when abilities are developed, but instinctual behavior does not improve neurological wiring. Examples of human instincts include the facial expression associated with the person's emotional state (e.g. smiling when happy), staring at the threat when becoming aggressive, eyebrows flinching when recognizing someone or something, and how someone's posture changes when they are mentally preparing to leave. Instincts are responses to stimuli that we cannot control or unlearn so they are not useful when we are analyzing performance, but they are related to many performance situations (e.g. body language when delivering sales pitches).
Drives
Urges that are present at birth or develop over time, but that can be overridden by logic are called drives. Drives are genetically influenced behaviors (e.g. fight or flight). People are influenced by drives much more than by instincts because we have eliminated many of the instincts that lower animals possess. Genes can be influenced by external stimuli over multiple generations and we have simply bred out the lack of control. We now choose to succumb (as opposed to not having a choice) to urges that are instinctual in most animals (e.g. maternal - we give up children for adoption, territorial - we sell our houses, imprinting - we get divorced). Drives can be critical to performance because half of any performance equation is the "willingness" to perform.
Values
Willingness to perform is also based on our values (e.g. there are certain products that some people simply refuse to sell). Values are deeply held beliefs that are manifested as preferences or susceptibilities. Values generally fall into the following categories: moral, ideological, social, and aesthetic. Values influence the development of other competencies, but are separate from the other categories. While many values are collectively shared by common groups (e.g. religious ideologies), they are also modified based on personal experience (e.g. materialism is most prevalent in people who did not actively participate in groups in their youth). Values are often manifested as norms that are reinforced by one's cultural upbringing (e.g. the value of respect during mourning is expressed by the norm of wearing black).
Attitudes
Attitude is another category that impacts a performer's willingness. Attitude is the liking, dislikeing, or conflicted combination of liking and disliking something. Attitudes are reactions to our beliefs, which have predominantly developed over time based on our experiences. Attitudes are more susceptible to change than personality and other people can persuade us to change an attitude through communication. Attitude is an important competency category because not only is it physical (just like long-term memory, attitude resides in the affective and cognitive nodes in the brain), it is a critical element of decision-making - commonly referred to as intuition or "gut reaction". The more important the performance is to you, the greater the impact of attitude has on your performance.
Personality
Everyone has a past. Even within the same family we have unique experiences that shape our perception of the world and the preferences that are manifested as our personality. Like several of the other categories, personality can and does change over time. Personality is not fully understood, and thus, there are a variety of theories about the causal factors behind someone's personality, what elements constitute the description of a personality, and how one can measure a personality. The Big Five is the closest that psychologists seem to have come thus far in creating a model that identifies how personality affects our ability to perform (and even then, only one of the five factors - conscientiousness - seems to be strongly correlated to performance). Though it is extremely complex and not well understood, it is generally accepted that performance requires certain preferences or personality traits.
Emotions
Skills and intelligence are often enhanced by the performer's mental state. This has given rise to the popularity of such concepts as emotional intelligence. Mental health includes competencies that are both personality traits and emotional states. However, these are clearly unique constructs. Hunger and sadness are not points along a continuum. Hunger is an ability because it is physical in nature. Sadness is an emotional state (which certainly may have been induced by a physical state) that probably resides within the limbic system and/or prefrontal cortex. Emotions can trigger physical traits, such as sadness leading to tears, but they are separate attributes because tears can be released when the dominant emotion is joy. There has been recent research into specific chemicals in the brain that are described as the root of romantic love. Though that research may help clarify some of the root causes of emotions, it does not mean that emotions are simply abilities because they are far too complex to be described as such.
Monday, May 11, 2009
ASTD releases research on Talent Management
The American Society for Training and Development released the results of a survey on talent management. Given that a majority of the membership represents only one aspect of the spectrum that they defined as talent management (development), it is interesting an interesting read.
ASTD recognized in the late 1990's that the International Society for Performance Improvement was onto something when they starting converting ASTD members to Gilbert's Behavioral Engineering Model. Many trainers intuitively realized that they were being called in to fix problems that were not caused by gaps in skill or knowledge. ISPI's take on Gilbert's model helped trainers start to identify causal factors through performance analysis that freed the training team from very frustrating and often fruitless work. (ASTD eventually adopted ISPI's CPT certification and now offer it to their own members.) Now it seems that ASTD is embarking on an even broader view of its members' potential roles in organizations. ASTD is researching a scope of work that traditionally belonged to organizational development teams.
The ASTD study defined talent management as,
"A holistic approach to optimizing human capital, which enables an organization to drive short- and long-term results by building culture, engagement, capability, and capacity through integrated talent acquisition, development, and deployment processes that are aligned to business goals."
If you are interested, read the entire article here. Why do you think ASTD is looking into the entire spectrum of talent managment?
ASTD recognized in the late 1990's that the International Society for Performance Improvement was onto something when they starting converting ASTD members to Gilbert's Behavioral Engineering Model. Many trainers intuitively realized that they were being called in to fix problems that were not caused by gaps in skill or knowledge. ISPI's take on Gilbert's model helped trainers start to identify causal factors through performance analysis that freed the training team from very frustrating and often fruitless work. (ASTD eventually adopted ISPI's CPT certification and now offer it to their own members.) Now it seems that ASTD is embarking on an even broader view of its members' potential roles in organizations. ASTD is researching a scope of work that traditionally belonged to organizational development teams.
The ASTD study defined talent management as,
"A holistic approach to optimizing human capital, which enables an organization to drive short- and long-term results by building culture, engagement, capability, and capacity through integrated talent acquisition, development, and deployment processes that are aligned to business goals."
If you are interested, read the entire article here. Why do you think ASTD is looking into the entire spectrum of talent managment?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Headhunters
As the job market has slid over the past 15 months, I have had a lot of newly unemployed friends contact me for referrals to great recruiters. At first, my response was, "A recruiter will only want to hear from you if s/he is actively working on an assignment for which you may be a perfect fit." Then the market worsened and my recruiter friends started asking me for referrals to companies that had open positions. So my advice to both groups became, "Great hunters always know how to think like their prey, which allows them to accurately predict where they will be and what will draw them in." This may be an odd metaphor, but it has been working so I decided to share it with everyone via my blog.
First, what drives a recruiter's behaviors? External recruiters live and die by their individual placements. They must find a great candidate, sell both the candidate and the employer on the match and then convince them to stay together for at least six to twelve months (recruiters rarely get paid if the person does not stay for a pre-determined length of time). Internal recruiters live and die by the quality and speed of placements because they must deal with the "customer" every day (i.e. they both work for the same company). Depending on how clever they are, they may rely on global job boards (not very clever) or they may reach out to a network of well-connected contacts in that industry (very clever). Greed-driven external recruiters will often spam a company with a ton of applicants hoping something will stick (aka spray and pray). Thoughtful ones will do a thorough job sourcing candidates via channels not usually used by internal recruiters and will do a nice pre-screen on the front end to make sure they are only sending a small number of highly-qualified and strong-fit candidates. Internal recruiters may spend a great deal of time only filling entry-level positions, which means they will be found at college job fairs. More valuable internal recruiters will spend that time at industry events, talking up the benefits of working for the company (to employees of competitor companies) and identifying fresh thinkers who may be delivering cutting-edge presentations.
Recruiters can also be found online. This is a great way to play "fly on the wall" and start to learn about the current recruiting market and techniques that recruiters use. (It is better to be easily found by a recruiter than to look desperate by sending your resume to hundreds of them directly - remember, unsolicited resumes from people who cannot be immediately beneficial will be tossed in the garbage.) Some of the places where recruiters are lurking include:
First, what drives a recruiter's behaviors? External recruiters live and die by their individual placements. They must find a great candidate, sell both the candidate and the employer on the match and then convince them to stay together for at least six to twelve months (recruiters rarely get paid if the person does not stay for a pre-determined length of time). Internal recruiters live and die by the quality and speed of placements because they must deal with the "customer" every day (i.e. they both work for the same company). Depending on how clever they are, they may rely on global job boards (not very clever) or they may reach out to a network of well-connected contacts in that industry (very clever). Greed-driven external recruiters will often spam a company with a ton of applicants hoping something will stick (aka spray and pray). Thoughtful ones will do a thorough job sourcing candidates via channels not usually used by internal recruiters and will do a nice pre-screen on the front end to make sure they are only sending a small number of highly-qualified and strong-fit candidates. Internal recruiters may spend a great deal of time only filling entry-level positions, which means they will be found at college job fairs. More valuable internal recruiters will spend that time at industry events, talking up the benefits of working for the company (to employees of competitor companies) and identifying fresh thinkers who may be delivering cutting-edge presentations.
Recruiters can also be found online. This is a great way to play "fly on the wall" and start to learn about the current recruiting market and techniques that recruiters use. (It is better to be easily found by a recruiter than to look desperate by sending your resume to hundreds of them directly - remember, unsolicited resumes from people who cannot be immediately beneficial will be tossed in the garbage.) Some of the places where recruiters are lurking include:
- RecruitingBlogs.com - as advertised, this is a warehouse of blogs and comments by both internal and external recruiters (you can quickly learn about fee splits, search basics, and other hot topics by poking around this site)
- ERE.net - this site is run by a media company and I believe that they cull the membership in order to promote the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership (for leaders of internal recruiting teams) and various conferences that they sponsor, but the members post great information and they have local groups that you can join
- NetworkedRecruiter.com - look for a group like this in your neighborhood because this is where the recruiters literally meet!
Monday, March 9, 2009
IDP: Future State
The second step in documenting an effective individual development plan is to define the end of your journey. What will you look like when you have made all of the changes that you hope to make as a result of this plan (or the final plan if this is just a preliminary step)? This is the goal that you are trying to achieve. Questions that will help you document and define that future state:
- "The new habits that I will have include..."
- "Around the water cooler people will say I am..."
- "When my boss gets called for a character reference she will say..."
- If you are basing your IDP on an assessment you might ask, "What are the opposites of the negatives that are documented on my assessment results?"
- "The things that I do well today that I want to continue to do well include..."
IDP: Current State
When documenting an Individual Development Plan it is best to start with a clear understanding of your current state. This is the starting point on your personal improvement map. Whether you are focusing on a single competency or a combination of personal factors, you should begin by answering the following questions:
The most important thing to do is to be brutally honest with yourself.
- If you are working from some sort of assessment, ask yourself, "How would the people who rated me low in this area describe me?"
- "What are my habits?"
- "How do I see the world today?"
- "I am concerned that I might be..."
- "This issue concerns me because people are critical of me when I..."
- "The most overt symptoms that people have observed include..."
- "The underlying cause of this behavior is..."
- "The things that I do well and do not want to lose sight of include..."
The most important thing to do is to be brutally honest with yourself.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Planning Your Career Adventure
There are several factors that contribute to an enjoyable and successful career adventure. Matching your preferences and abilities to the jobs available in this economy is no small feat, but it is a challenge that you may be facing. Finding the perfect job involves exploring several issues, including:
• Your interest in the things that make up the job’s responsibilities and tasks
One of the best texts on job content is the “Occupational Outlook Handbook”, published by the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is not light reading. It would literally take you days to read through all of the job descriptions. Of course, most people simply read the descriptions of the jobs that they think that they want. That leaves them with only half of the answer. The deeper, and more effective question to ask is, “Would I be good at this job?” Do you prefer to do the types of things that are required by the job? Can I turn my interests into real skills and be successful?
The classic text on determining job preferences is “What color is my parachute?” by Richard Nelson "Dick" Bolles. This year's edition has been completely revised and rewritten and is designed to work in conjunction with the book's website. At the heart of Bolles's formula for finding the right job are two questions: What do you want to do? Where do you want to do it?
Capitalizing on the popularity of self-help career reference manuals, several websites have taken the initiative to regurgitate much of the same advice online. Of these the most comprehensive and useful are those put together by colleges for their recent graduates and alumni. At http://www.cdm.uwaterloo.ca/index2.asp you will find the University of Waterloo’s Career Development Manual. In its second edition it is one of the most-visited career assistance sites on the Internet. It guides the browser through a series of explorations and decisions leading to an overall life and career map.
Clearly, the challenge begins with knowing what your interests are and whether you can translate those interests into career success in a given job. If you have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® or another profile that measures interest or preferences then you can look up the types of jobs that are usually associated with that type of individual. For example, an INFP in MBTI® terms is “particularly interested in being a counselor, editor, education consultant, English teacher, fine arts teacher, journalist, psychologist, religious educator, social scientist, social worker, teacher, writer, and other occupations that engage their values” according to http://www.geocities.com/lifexplore/
Another website that links your preferences directly to the jobs found in the Occupational Outlook Handbook is http://www.assessment.com You take a free 71-item questionnaire and get a brief synopsis of your motivations and top ten career matches. You can even look up five of those matches for free. http://www.assessment.com offers a free tool called MAPP that is comprehensive in its scope and job matching capabilities. MAPP is a fully integrated, computer-aided vocational assessment system that:
• Measures your potential and motivation for given areas of work.
• Describes your temperament, aptitude and vocational interests.
• Formats information in three ways:
• Your interest in the things that make up the job’s responsibilities and tasks
- Do you know what the job really entails?
- Do you like to do the things that someone must do to be successful in this job?
- Will your interest translate into skills that will make you good at this job?
- Do you have the stomach for the conflict management skills required?
- Do you want to manage people and their problems?
- Are you excited and happy when you come to work?
- Can you develop the required skills and knowledge? How long will it take for you to get up to speed and be productive in the job?
- Are you naturally inclined to making the types of decisions that would make you successful in the job?
- Do you have inherent abilities that would benefit you in the job?
- Are you willing and able to relocate? To where?
- Are you willing and able to travel? How often?
- What is best for your family?
One of the best texts on job content is the “Occupational Outlook Handbook”, published by the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is not light reading. It would literally take you days to read through all of the job descriptions. Of course, most people simply read the descriptions of the jobs that they think that they want. That leaves them with only half of the answer. The deeper, and more effective question to ask is, “Would I be good at this job?” Do you prefer to do the types of things that are required by the job? Can I turn my interests into real skills and be successful?
The classic text on determining job preferences is “What color is my parachute?” by Richard Nelson "Dick" Bolles. This year's edition has been completely revised and rewritten and is designed to work in conjunction with the book's website. At the heart of Bolles's formula for finding the right job are two questions: What do you want to do? Where do you want to do it?
Capitalizing on the popularity of self-help career reference manuals, several websites have taken the initiative to regurgitate much of the same advice online. Of these the most comprehensive and useful are those put together by colleges for their recent graduates and alumni. At http://www.cdm.uwaterloo.ca/index2.asp you will find the University of Waterloo’s Career Development Manual. In its second edition it is one of the most-visited career assistance sites on the Internet. It guides the browser through a series of explorations and decisions leading to an overall life and career map.
Clearly, the challenge begins with knowing what your interests are and whether you can translate those interests into career success in a given job. If you have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® or another profile that measures interest or preferences then you can look up the types of jobs that are usually associated with that type of individual. For example, an INFP in MBTI® terms is “particularly interested in being a counselor, editor, education consultant, English teacher, fine arts teacher, journalist, psychologist, religious educator, social scientist, social worker, teacher, writer, and other occupations that engage their values” according to http://www.geocities.com/lifexplore/
Another website that links your preferences directly to the jobs found in the Occupational Outlook Handbook is http://www.assessment.com You take a free 71-item questionnaire and get a brief synopsis of your motivations and top ten career matches. You can even look up five of those matches for free. http://www.assessment.com offers a free tool called MAPP that is comprehensive in its scope and job matching capabilities. MAPP is a fully integrated, computer-aided vocational assessment system that:
• Measures your potential and motivation for given areas of work.
• Describes your temperament, aptitude and vocational interests.
• Formats information in three ways:
- Narrative
- Numeric
- Graphical
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