HOW TO FACILITATE CAREER CHOICE

In most academic fields it is easier to conduct research on
a process than it is to help people do it better. The process of
I choice in the career is no exception. l-lowever, there is a sizable
body of literature on the practice of career counseling (see, for
example, the Journal of Counseling Psychology and the Journal
of Vocational Behavior) which links the practitioner to the re-
searcher to a considerable degree. This section will examine some
ways in which the theory and research on careers might be applied
to aid individuals in their career choice activities.
Provide Information Through Experience
The most important input to any decision or choice is obviously
information. Because the career is a synthesis of the person’s
identity and the occupational role, the person needs information
on three elements: the occupations or options available, his own
seIf—identity, and seIf—in—occupation. SeIf—in-occupation refers to
the fit between the person and various career options, how he
would feel and perform in various occupational roles. Because
the interaction between person and occupation may provide
more information than could be inferred from knowledge of either
element alone, it is useful for the person to obtain data on himself
in various work situations. These could be pan—time jobs, summer
jobs, trial jobs, laboratory occupational simulations, computer-
aided simulations, role playing, career games, and so forth. The
important feature of information about self-in-occupation is that
it is generated from experience and direct obsen/ation.
information about occupations is probably obtained superfi-
cially and haphazardly by most people. This may be partly be-
cause of the sheer number of occupations in existence and partly
because people feel they already know as much as they need
to know about most lines of work. Note, however, that these are
contradictory statements. In fact, most people spend less time
gathering and consciously analyzing data on possible occupations
to enter than they do on the cars they buy.

Information on the person’s self-identity can be uncovered
through self-examination, counseling, therapy, discussions with —
friends, teachers, bosses, and various kinds of life-planning exer-
cises. In the latter, the person takes and usually self-scores various
tests and questionnaires which measure
work-related needs, values, and interests. Following the scoring,
he discusses the results with his advisor or other group members,
considers their validity, and discusses what they add to his self-
conceptions. He would also obtain feedback on his behavior and
apparent needs, values, and interests. Another wrinkle, originally
used by Herb Shepard, is for the person to: (1) write ten answers
to the question, Who am l'?, (2) write an obituary as it would appear
tomorrow, if the person died today, and (3) write an epitaph. These
data would also be discussed with the advisor or group.
Another way of finding out about oneself is to write an obituary
as you would like it to look in ten years (i.e., what do you want
to accomplish over the next ten years?). Another activity is to
develop a list of career goals, being as specific as possible about:
(1) how the goal is defined, (2) what criteria would be used to
measure goal attainment, (3) resources and people that would
help in attaining the goal, (4) obstacles that would have to be
overcome and how, etc.* Most managers, when asked how much
time they spend on their own career planning, are surprised to
realize how little they do. Usually they spend far more time manag-
ing their subordinates’ careers than their own. The active role
managers play in directing the affairs of the organization and their
passivity in managing their own lives is incongruous.

Stimulate Task Success

Most research on underachievers in educational and occupational
settings has found that an unfavorable self-concept and low ex-
pectancies of success are important correlates of failure.


One major strategy in remedial educational and occupational
programs has been to try to increase the self-esteem and involve-
ment of the student or employee. This strategy is based upon
the same assumptions as the psychological success model de-
scribed earlier. lf the success process is indeed cyclic,
intervention at any point could theoretically get the cycle "operat-
ing." Given all we have learned about the difficulty of changing
a person’s self-concept (even long therapy has unclear effects),
it would appear that there would be much greater payoff in at-
tempting to improve work performance and increase the person’s
perception of his success directly. Then experiences of success
would indirectly enhance the person’s self—concept. We know we
can increase a person’s chances for task or job success through
putting him on a difficult but not impossible job, which he values,
which involves personal autonomy but with opportunities for
coaching and support from boss and co-workers. By carefully
selecting jobs or tasks that would constitute good success oppor-
tunities for a given person, a manager, teacher, counselor, or other
helping agent could probably do more to aid career choice and
development than would months or years of counseling, therapy,
or other forms of direct self-concept development.


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