Career Planning Scale: Assessing and Teaching Career Planning

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Career Planning Scale Assessing and Teaching
Career Planning

• John Liptak, Ed.D., Associate Director Career
  Services, Radford University jjliptak_at_radford.edu
• 540-831-5091
• 2009 Careers Conference

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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

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The Career Planning Process
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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)

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Why the CPS?

• Too many career counseling models
• Need a generic model that incorporated best
  aspects of all
• Donald Supers influence
• Conducting group career classes with offenders
  (books are intimidating)
• Many career counselors have no formal career
  development theory training

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Barriers to Career Planning

• Lack of Career Maturity!

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What is Career Maturity?

• An individuals 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.

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Signs of Limited Career Maturity

• I dont 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 dont know what I like to do (or value, or
  what I am skilled at, etc.)
• Im not good at making decisions.

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Influencers of Career Maturity

• Age, race, ethnicity, locus of control, SES, and
  gender (3)
• At Radford University first generation,
  Appalachian

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What does the CPS do?

• Measures strengths in a set of skills or tasks
  that people need to possess in order to make and
  implement effective career decisions.

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Theoretical Basis of CPS

• Donald Supers 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

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Supers Definition

• Career Maturity An individuals 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 societys
  expectations of people who have reached that
  stage of development (Super, 1990, p 213).

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Elements of Career Maturity

• Planfulness
• Exploration of self
• Information gather about WOW
• Information gathering about Occupations
• Decision Making
• Reality Orientation Implementation

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Correlation between Supers model and CPS Scales

• 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

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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

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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

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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.

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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CPS Career Quizzes

• 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.

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Interventions at RU

• UNIV 100/Freshman Orientation
• Short Programs
• Individual Coaching Sessions
• Career Development Courses
• Senior Seminar Courses

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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.

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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.