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posted by malaika at 9:14 PM on Jun 06 2006

R U CAREER CONFUZED ?.......

Shape Up Your Career Using Holland's Codes
You know when you are in a job you like. You also know when the task you’re doing just isn't right for you.

What lies behind our feelings of work satisfaction or dissatisfaction are our fundamental work interests: These are the things that we enjoy doing, whatever the industry or the job title. The trick to finding career satisfaction can be to identify those core interests and match your job to them.

For example, if you’re a science person, you may not be happy working in a job that needs quick decisions, or where you need to use your “gut” to guide you. Likewise, artistic people would be driven mad in a profession that has lots of rules and procedures, or which demands a lot of number crunching.

In a perfect world, we would all choose careers that suit our core interests. However this is not a perfect world: For all sorts of reasons, we can find ourselves in positions where what we’re doing just doesn’t suit our natural interests and abilities. This is where understanding how job and personality fit together can help you change the situation for the better.

Ability and personality are the two main things contribute towards job satisfaction. You’re likely to find that jobs that suit your ability and personality are much more rewarding than those that don’t. Here we look at your work interests – an important part of your work personality.

Understanding the Theory:Holland's Codes

In the 1970’s John Holland developed a popular theory of interest development based around these six personality types:

1. Realistic (R):
These are people who like well-ordered activities, or enjoy working with objects, tools, and machines. Realistic people: see themselves as mechanically or athletically talented, but may not be good with people. value concrete and tangible things like – money, power, and status.avoid “social” activities, those that need interaction with other people. Common traits: Hard-headed, inflexible, persistent, materialistic, practical, and genuine.

2. Investigative (I):
Investigative people like activities that involve creative investigation of the world or nature. Investigative people: see themselves as highly intelligent, but often lack leadership skills. value scientific endeavors. avoid activities that seem mundane, commercial or “enterprising”. Common traits: Analytical, curious, pessimistic, intellectual, precise, and reserved.

3. Artistic (A):
Artistic people like unstructured activities, and enjoy using materials to create art.

Artistic people: see themselves as talented artists. value aesthetics. avoid “conventional” occupations or situations. Common traits: Idealistic, complicated , introspective, sensitive, impractical and nonconformist.

4. Social (S):
Social people enjoy informing, training, developing, curing and enlightening others. Social people: perceive themselves as helpful, understanding and able to teach others. value social activities. avoid activities demanded by “realistic” occupations and situations. Common traits: Generous, patient, emphatic, tactful, persuasive, and cooperative.

5. Enterprising (E):
These people enjoy reaching organizational goals or achieving economic gain. Enterprising people: see themselves as aggressive, popular, great leaders and speakers, but may lack scientific ability. value political and economic achievement. avoid activities demanded by “investigative” occupations and situations. Common traits: Extroverted, adventurous, optimistic, ambitious, sociable, and exhibitionistic.

6. Conventional (C): Conventional people enjoy manipulating data, record keeping, filing, reproducing materials, and organizing written or numerical data. Conventional people see themselves as having clerical and numerical ability value business and economic achievementavoid unstructured or “artistic” activities Common traits: Efficient, practical, conscientious, inflexible, defensive, and methodical. The Model
Holland then arranged these six personality types into a hexagon (see figure 1, below) organized according to people’s preference for working with different stimuli at work: people, data, things, and ideas. Holland’s theory is that people with different personality types prefer working with different work stimuli, and that the distance between work personalities indicates the degree of difference in interests between them. For example Artistic people are least like Conventional people and most like Social and Investigative people.

Holland’s conclusion was that for any personality type, the career most aligned with that type is most likely to be enjoyable and satisfying. For example, a Realistic person would be best suited for a Technical job and least suited for Social job. Jobs with Conventional or Operational characteristics would be the next best choices.

The way that this works in practice is that people people use a personality test to identify their three top personality types. This gives their Holland's code (for example, ESA). This is then matched against the Holland's codes of people typically found within particular careers.

How to Use Holland Codes Career Model:

There are two good ways of using this model - either in helping you choose a career that suits you, or in helping you shape your existing job so that you maximize your fulfillment. To find your ideal career according to this approach, just complete steps i and ii below. To shape your job, use all of the steps we outline.

Using Holland’s Codes is a straightforward process, which is made all the easier by some useful online interest evaluation sites.

Part One: Identify your Work Personality....
Part Two: Analyze your job in terms of your interests....
Part Three: Set Goals to Bring Your Interests and Responsibilities in line....

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