Assessment Practice in Career Development - Glenna Healey

      I recently completed an online University of Calgary Continuing Education course called Assessment Practice in Career Development.  It was one of the most worthwhile and enjoyable courses I have taken on my entire educational journey. The exercises in the text book, Taking Charge of your Career Direction by R.D. Lock, helped me understand assessment practices in the career consulting field. But most of all,  the assignments provided me with ample exploration and reflection of my personal career journey, where I have come from, where I am and where I am going.  I found the D2L weekly discussion posts invaluable to read and thoroughly enjoyed being involved in the exchange of ideas with others.  The class is made up of individuals of all ages, cultures and backgrounds.  The learning curve was steep, but overall, well worth the hard work.

     I want to share the value of the Alberta Government’s ALIS website.  It is a wonderful resource on the Alberta Government website, created in conjunction with the Government of Canada. ALIS, which stands for Alberta Learning Information Services, has a portal called CareerInsite.  CareerInsite is a ‘one-stop guide’ developed to assist people in the job market with many aspects of career counselling. It is user-friendly and a wealth of knowledge.  From it a person can develop a career plan. The resources are well founded, valid and easy to interpret. Anyone can open an account and generate reports about their career planning. Further, a person can generate career options and research careers. It includes the following categories: Know yourself – this is where a person will do some quizzes or assessments to build a picture of who they are and what they want in an occupation or career. In Explore Options, a person will research occupational options based on their assessment results. In Get Ready, a person will compare and focus the occupational options they have identified. And in Take Action, a person will use the recommended five steps to identify tasks involved in pursuing the occupational option, create a timeline and stay motivated in reaching their goal.    (Taken from https://alis.alberta.ca/index.html)

     On a more personal note, one of the assignments we completed was to identify our career values and then we used a matrix to rank the values.  “A value is anything to which a person gives worth, merit, or usefulness. It is a quality that makes something desirable.” (Lock, p. 253)  I had completed a number of different values assessments throughout the course and was pleased to see that the outcomes of the assessments were very similar.   One main value that was/is important to me is helping other people. As well, I look for independence and interesting work where I can apply my skills.  What surprised me most was that achievement wasn’t as high on my list as I would have thought or as it was at the beginning of my career. The most important value that surfaced was health. As my eyes have been troubling me over the past year, looking after them has become my number one priority. 

     In a follow up to this assignment, we were asked to think about what our values would have been at the beginning of our career versus now in our career.  At the beginning of my professional career I was a new grad fresh out of university with a business degree.  My values were making money, climbing the corporate ladder, dressing in fancy outfits, achieving and being noticed.  After 28 years, my values have changed to health, helping other people, having independence and interesting work.  How valuable it has been for me to have a thoughtful retrospective of my life’s work.

     To conclude, I would encourage you to go to the ALIS website, open an account and fill out a couple of assessments.  You might confirm what you already know or you may discover something new about yourself.  This spring I will be completing the last of four courses for a certificate in Career and Academic Advising.   

References

Lock, R. D. (2005). Taking Charge of your Career Direction. Belmont, CA, USA: Thomson

Brooks/Cole.

Alberta Government ALIS Taken from https://alis.alberta.ca/index.html