Career Choices GPS

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Date published: 04/03/13

Written by Douglas Garner

 Career Fit for Natural Success

Jennifer Bergan, at 19, thought she was perfectly suited to teach. “To mold young minds for a successful world in the future.”

She knew it didn’t pay much but she was sure the adoration from those young people would certainly be reward enough.

With this plan and the loving support of her cash strapped parents and a student loan, she set off to a respectable (‘expensive’) teacher preparatory University to hone her skills at molding minds.

After 2 years and almost $35,000 in tuition and fees, she had to confront the brutal reality (with the professional help from her professors) she was not suited for teaching, at least in our public or private secondary educational structure. She just did not have the inherent talent or personality and analytical orientation necessary to face the classrooms of today.

She was loved by others but would be “eaten alive” by the Administration and bureaucracy in today’s systems.

So, it was not the income potential, the credentials or even her adoration orientation that tripped her up. It was her own false self-interpretation of her talents that was to blame.

Maybe it was that teacher she loved so much in the 6^th Grade. What was it she had said?

“You can be anything you want to be.”

Well, it was not true. She couldn’t play a concert piano. She could not sing the arias she loved so much. No, she wasn’t even “hard wired” to be a successful teacher in today’s Education System.

Maybe it was her family’s value of public service. Giving back.

Or maybe she was simply projecting a personality that just wasn't who she really had become.

At the end, of this chapter anyway, she and her parents were out more than $35,000 and she was 2 years older and facing a new start. Lessons learned, but at what cost?

Does this story ring true for you? It certainly represents a lot of students that we have talked to and parents of students we have spoken with who lament the tremendous cost in money, in time, in emotion, in relationships, in all sorts of “what ifs?”

We know about a normative and statistically predictive psychometric assessment that has been calibrated to over 100 different careers and can save young people and their families a tremendous cost in false starts or career frustration by giving them some objective guidance to the best path to take regarding their inherent characteristics, their natural talents related to where they have the greatest potential from natural ‘gifts’.

You know some people grow up to be very enterprising and achievement oriented but they need an existing structure or established procedures.

Still others are naturally outgoing, seeking new relationships, new venues and the latest technologies. They prefer to map their own path as opposed to following the ‘wake’ of pioneers.

As you consider these two types of people and their unique characteristics what advice would you give them? Would they be good in Business Administration? Engineering? Communications? Hospitality? How about Farming? Or Automotive Mechanics? Law?

I know what you may be thinking….”I don’t have enough information to make a suggestion.”

Well, precisely, and that is usually the case …. Even for parents.

I’ve got grey hair and I’ve told my sons, their friends and other young people, that I did not really know what I was good at or what I wanted to be when I grew up until about age 40. Up until then I had followed other peoples’ suggestions and advice about who I was and what I could (should) do. Needless to say, my resume ran into three pages before age 45.

Today, the opportunities are as massive if not more so than when I was growing up. (I just missed out manufacturing buggy whips.) And people, parents, teachers, guidance counselors and even PhD professors don’t have any more right answers than those mentors of mine.

Young people today have access to a tremendous data base of careers and information about what those careers are all about, the compensation, the educational requirements and on and on.

However, most young people today have never had the opportunity to calibrate themselves, their natural talents, personality traits and their fit to particular careers or job families in any objective way.

That is no longer true. There is an on-line psychometric assessment designed specifically to statistically calibrate an individual’s fit to particular careers. This is true for young or even us ‘mature’ individuals.

The product is called Career Choices GPS, and it comes with pre-calibrated fit scores for over 100 sample jobs in 13 ‘Job Families’. These fit rankings are from “Most” to “Least” and give the Assessment Taker more information about those careers that may or may not be a good fit, such as sample duties and the typical education requirements. The product “kit” includes a Self- Interpretation Guide and Workbooks with exercises to complete to determine what made them this way, today, and thinking about tomorrow, “what makes the most sense to me moving forward considering who I am and my natural talents?”

In Jennifer and her parents’ case, it could have saved them $35,000 and two years of frustration.

How much money and time might it save a young person you know?    

Contact us if you’d like to learn more.