Career Counseling

 

Career counseling methods utilize principles from aptitude and creativity research.  The following four objectives will allow one’s career path to become clear with a minimum amount of time and energy:

• The identification of aptitudes and relative aptitude weaknesses through an objectively-based aptitude assessment
• The recognition of  authentic interests and values
• The discovery of where aptitudes, interests and values intersect, and point to a vocation.
• The identification of resources that will allow the vocation to materialize in the ‘real world.’

The Aptitude Assessment
The most effective approach in career counseling begins with information about ourselves that we may not already have.  An objective aptitude assessment identifies our strongest aptitudes and relative aptitude weaknesses. Our aptitude profile gives us a deeper understanding of ourselves at a root level.  We then build subsequent components upon this understanding.

 

Aptitude assessment as a cornerstone in career counseling is based on findings from aptitude research.  In order to find sustainable work, we must be able to use our strongest, ‘driving’ aptitudes on a regular basis.  These are the ones that must be used in order to experience sustainable success and fulfillment.  In terms of finding authentic fulfillment, there is no replacement for the satisfaction that comes from using our strongest aptitudes.

 

If prior testing has been less than helpful, it may be because test results were inaccurate or incomplete.  For example, we may have been influenced by social or educational conditioning and therefore responded to test questions in an inauthentic manner.  Or, a tester may not have shed light on the not-so-obvious implications ‘underneath’ our test scores.  It is important to double-check for accuracy in test results so that the foundation built on it will be solid.

 

The Recognition of Authentic Interests and Values
Not everything that interests us will give us an outlet for our strongest aptitudes.  At a fundamental level, the reason we are drawn to a certain activity frequently goes beyond the relatively superficial level of interests alone.  Activities that feel the most satisfying and effortless typically allow our strongest aptitudes and abilities to be employed. 

 

To be given a specific list of occupations from any test often feels unsatisfactory.  In general, recommendations that come ‘from the outside-in’ are never felt to be as authentic as those that are discovered ‘from inside-out.’

 

Highly creative people naturally have multiple interests and talents.  A ‘just pick one thing and do it’ approach may preordain a set of options that is arbitrarily narrow.  Specific methods are used to allow for multiple interests and values to emerge and to be discerned in terms of ‘patterns’ that will allow us to recognize and live from even several important interests at once, if authentically-indicated.

 

This approach allows us to organically recognize a calling.  We may also be called to create a new career, or even a domain that does not yet exist.  This potential speaks to the heart of the creatively-gifted person’s talent and need to be involved in work that is about “creativity with a capital C.”

 

The Intersection of Aptitudes, Interests and Values
The Identification of Resources
These last two objectives involve the use of tools that work with the creative process and the unconscious in order to stimulate spontaneous insights and recognitions.  These insights and recognitions are direct and indirect clues that allow us to identify an authentic vocational path and the resources we need that allow it to materialize.

 

Life supports our efforts to individuate.