Career Planning Scale: Assessing and Teaching Career Planning

1. Career Planning Scale: Assessing and Teaching Career Planning John Liptak, Ed.D., Associate Director Career Services, Radford University jjliptak@radford.edu 540-831-5091 2009 Careers Conference

2. What is a Career? • “Career can be viewed as the life course of a person encountering a series of developmental tasks and attempting to handle them in such a way as to become the kind of person he or she wants to be. With a changing self and changing situation, the matching process is really never complete!” (5)

3. Shocking Stats! (4) • 50% are dissatisfied with current job • 25% are always actively considering changing industries • 50% would take less money if their jobs would be more meaningful • 75% would take a pay cut for more personal time • 50% are experiencing burnout • “Workers today want meaning more than anything else. They crave purpose, a sense of direction, and a feeling that they are contributing to society and making it a better place. Planning is Critical!” (Tarlow and Tarlow)

4. Need for Career Planning • Only 32% of people planned and chose their job (NCDA) • With planning comes opportunity, but far too many people understand/can implement the career planning process (2) • Impact of career planning is stronger than any psychological influence on people (1) • Courses/programs yield increases in career decision making and career maturity about 93% of the time (1)

5. What is Career Planning? • An ongoing activity of making small & large decisions about occupations, education, leisure activities, and other life roles. • Process necessary for people of all ages • A process that must be turned into a substantive psychological experience for the client – WOW Factor! • A skill that can be taught

6. The Career Planning Process

7. How Does it Help? • Makes job change process less scary • Orients and organizes life and career • Empowers people to take charge and responsibility for own career development • Teaches skills people can use • Enhances maturity (choice is not the end-goal)

8. Why the CPS? • Too many career counseling models • Need a generic model that incorporated best aspects of all • Donald Super’s influence • Conducting group career classes with offenders (books are intimidating) • Many career counselors have no formal career development theory training

9. Barriers to Career Planning Lack of Career Maturity!

10. What is Career Maturity? • An individual’s readiness to deal with the career planning process and his/her degree of success in coping with current tasks involved in career planning (Liptak, 2001). • A developmental process in which people increasingly gain the capacity to make sound career decisions.

11. Signs of Limited Career Maturity • “I don’t know how to make a career choice.” • “What would you do?” • I like too many things.” • “Why plan for the future….things are so uncertain.” • “I don’t know what I like to do (or value, or what I am skilled at, etc.)” • “I’m not good at making decisions.”

12. Influencers of Career Maturity • Age, race, ethnicity, locus of control, SES, and gender (3) • At Radford University – first generation, Appalachian

13. Measures strengths in a set of skills or tasks that people need to possess in order to make and implement effective career decisions. What does the CPS do?

14. Theoretical Basis of CPS • Donald Super’s Research about career development and career maturity • People complete developmental stages (but not all the same time) • People must complete tasks within each stage to move to the next stage • Career Maturity is critical in the career planning process • Advised me with this assessment

15. Super’s Definition • Career Maturity – An individual’s readiness cope with the developmental tasks with which he or she is confronted because of his or her biological and social developments and because of society’s expectations of people who have reached that stage of development (Super, 1990, p 213).

16. Elements of Career Maturity • Planfulness • Exploration of self • Information gather about WOW • Information gathering about Occupations • Decision Making • Reality Orientation & Implementation

17. Planfulness Exploration of self Information gather about WOW Information gathering about Occupations Decision Making Reality Orientation & Implementation Career Planning Self-Knowledge Knowledge of the World of Work Knowledge of Occupations Career Decision- Making Career Implementation Correlation between Super’s model and CPS Scales

18. Using The CPS • Administer after intake/group introduction • Identify career maturity in six skills • Strengths & Weaknesses • Look at individual items for information • Tailor your interventions • Teach the process • Use the activities in Step 4 to initiate group discussions or for homework assignments

19. The Career Planning Scale • Use Steps for easy administration, scoring, and interpretation • Items are behavioral in nature • Written at 8th grade level • Women score higher than men on every scale but the Knowledge of World-of-Work scale • Women are much better career decision makers • People score highest on the Self-Knowledge scale and lowest on the Career Planning scale • Can be used by itself or in conjunction with a text

20. STEP 1 – Knowledge of the World-of-Work • Objectives: • Prepare people for an uncertain occupational future. • How the global economy will affect their career? • Explore employment issues in the workplace of tomorrow. • Prepare people to take advantage of new technology and new career opportunities. • Identify geographic features important to them. • Explore the value of lifelong learning.

21. Step 2 – Self-Knowledge • Objectives: • Help people explore their interests, skills, values, and personality, and how these match to identified occupations. • Help people discover how their personal characteristics translate to the world of work. • Help people envision what they are looking for in their career and what they have to offer employers. • Answer “who am I?” • How does work fill needs?

22. Step 3 – Knowledge of Occupations • Objectives: • Help people identify alternatives. • Help people explore occupations that interest them. • What are the characteristics of the work? • Help people search the Internet, read books and other print materials, and talk to others about occupations. • Shadow workers?

23. Step 4 – Career Decision- Making • Objectives: • Help people develop a methodical approach to making career decisions. • Look for info on salary, job requirements, etc. • Help people collect information, weigh the costs and benefits of their choices, rank order possibilities based on probabilities of success, and make final decisions that fit their personal characteristics and overall life goals.

24. Step 5 - Career Planning • Objectives: • Help people develop both short- and long-term goals for their career development. • Have people create a specific timeline for accomplishing these goals and steps they need to take to achieve them. • Have people develop a career plan that will allow them to live a balanced lifestyle consisting of work, family, and leisure activities. • Help people think about choice implementation.

25. Step 6 – Career Implementation • Objectives: • Help people identify how to implement occupational decisions. • Teach people how to look for a job, including writing a powerful resume and cover letter, networking for job leads, and interviewing effectively. • List and find solutions to barriers (BESI) • Explore education and training • Entrepreneurship • Other

26. Administrative Uses • Use the CPS as a pre and post-test to determine if your students/clients are developing skills over time. • Use the activities in Step 4 to initiate group discussions or for homework assignments. • Keep a database of test scores that you can use for program review. • Develop a baseline for comparison. • Use the CPS as a curriculum guide to teach Career Exploration and Planning courses.

27. World-of-Work Self-Knowledge Occupations Decision-Making Career Planning Career Implementation Chapters 1-3 Chapters 4-6 Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Chapters 8-9 Chapters 10-12 *Liptak, J.J. (2008). Career quizzes: 12 tests to help You discover & develop your dream career. Indianapolis, IN: JIST Publishing. CPS Career Quizzes*

28. Interventions at RU • UNIV 100/Freshman Orientation • Short Programs • Individual Coaching Sessions • Career Development Courses • Senior Seminar Courses

29. References • (1) Herr, E.L.H, & and Cramer, S.H. (1996). Career guidance and counseling through the lifespan. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman. • (2) Lock, R.D. (2005). Taking charge of your career direction. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole. • (3) Naidoo, A.V., Bowman, S.L., & Gerstein, L.H. (1998). Demographics, causality, work salience, and career maturity of African-American students: A causal model. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 53, (1), pp 15-27. • (4) Tarlow, M., & Tarlow, P. (2002) Digital aboriginal. New York, NY: Warner Books.

30. References (continued) • (5) Super, D.D., Savickas, M.L., & Super, C.M. (1996). The life-span, life-space approach to careers. In Brown, Brooks, & Associates (Eds.), Career choice & development (p. 140). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. • Anderson, P, & Vandehey, M. (2006). Career counseling and development in a global economy. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. • Liptak, J.J. (2001). Treatment planning in career counseling. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole. • Super, D.E. (1990). A life-span, Life-space approach to career development. In D. Brown, L. Brooks, & Associates (Eds.), Career choice and development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.