Running head: WHO AM I PAPER
Who Am I
Shantell Turner
Liberty University
Running head: What is God’s Desire in my Career Path?
Career Instrument Results
Taking personal interest surveys help people discover things that would be beneficial in life
about themselves. People get in their own way at times when it comes to careers. Whether it’s
money, fame, prestige, or recognition, people make decisions for different reasons. Ultimately,
we choose careers to benefit us and to become better citizens in society.
My scores from the O*NET interest profiler for my interest results are Realistic -7,
Investigative-20, Artistic- 16, social- 27, Enterprising- 23, and Conventional- 23. These things
were somewhat surprising to me. The social and artistic part were what I expected. The most
surprising things to me were conventional, enterprising, realistic, and investigative piece of the
inventory. I have never pictured myself having these qualities when it comes to careers.
John Holland’s theory of types were very interesting, and shed some light on what it means
from a counseling aspect of careers. Reading this section, I now realize how important the career
process and how stressful it can be. My top three Holland vocational personality types are social,
enterprising, and conventional. The social type of personality prefers activities that entail
manipulation of others to inform, train, develop, cure, or enlighten. (Niles, & Harris-Bowlsbey,
2017). One of the characteristic that I can see within myself is social. I feel very comfortable
with people around no matter if we are in a party setting, or business meeting. This is
comfortable to me because I feel that I can communicate and express myself in several different
ways. Another trait that I relate to is that I am very patient. Working with people in the
counseling field, you have to learn to meet people where they are. Then you can help them to get
to the level that they want to achieve, which is another trait of the social type.
Another personality type that I have is the enterprising. This was very surprising at first,
but discovering the types of traits that is in this type, I can agree with this. I am very optimistic,
Running head: What is God’s Desire in my Career Path?
which is a positive trait to have. I look at things with “the glass half full”. I am very energetic,
which makes me more of a friendly person, which also fits into the social type. Being an
extroverted person, this trait fits into my personality because I am the person to get more people
involved. I am not scared to invite several people to join me in doing new things, which brings
the adventurous trait into perspective for me.
The last personality type that scored high for me is the conventional type. The most
important trait that I believe makes me who I am is the persistent trait. I am very persistent in
mostly everything that I do. For example, in school I am the type of person that will not stop
doing things until I get the results that I want. Sometimes that can get in the way, but I always
take this as a positive thing. One trait listed, which is inhibited, I could take as a negative thing. I
would like to start a business someday, but this trait would be limiting to me because I would let
barriers get in the way of my dream.
The values that are important to me are having a family, growth, and knowledge. These are
most important to me for various reasons. Family helps you to become who God intended you to
be. Their guidance, encouragement, love, and strength can help you through most things in life.
Family is there for you even when you don’t think that you are being the best version of yourself.
Growth is very important to me for improvement in life and career situations. Knowledge is
important, because without knowledge, you can’t grow as a person. The values that are important
to me for continued value in my life. In choosing a career, growth and knowledge will take you
further, which will bring other things that are important such as advancement and promotion,
stability, and security. Choosing a career path, in order for you to grow, you have to become
knowledgeable in the field that you choose. This can be stressful, but with your family giving
Running head: What is God’s Desire in my Career Path?
you the encouragement and reassurance needed, you can have faith that you are making the right
decisions for you and the ones that you love.
Personal Reactions
My reactions to the results of the O*NET interest profiler scores were surprising. As I
learned more about my interests and determined some things that I didn’t realize. I believe that
some of the things were right in line with my beliefs. Learning more about each interest result, it
gave me more perspective of my interests in career choices. Before taking the interest profiler, I
believed that I chose the counseling field because I liked helping people. This was not my first
choice. I grew up wanting to become a nurse, but learning everything that nurses do, I chose
differently. Even though nurses help people, I learned early on that that field is not for me. I took
a psychology class at the undergraduate level, which introduced me to the psychology/counseling
field. I decided then, that counseling was the field for me. Learning my interest results showed
me in writing that my interests were in line with the field that I chose.
The Value Sort exercise was very hard for me. It has various things that I believe are
important to me, and determining which is more important than the other was difficult. Seeing
my values, and having to rank them (so to speak) showed me that some things can be placed at
different levels, but still be important to you. I have never looked at my values in this way. This
was an important exercise for me to do so that I can realize that this can be a good thing in
determining what to do in my career field.
Overall, the assessment results fit my self-perceptions in many ways. Some of the things
like working outside, figuring out problems, helping/being of service to people, and working
with clear rules are in line with what I do in my career path now. One thing that I don’t agree
with is taking risks for profits, which is under the enterprising interest. According to Niles, &
Running head: What is God’s Desire in my Career Path?
Harris-Bowlsbey (2017), the social type has an aversion to explicit, ordered and systematic activities. I
disagree with this because I like spontaneous and challenging things in my career.
External Influences
I believe that intrinsic factors did influence my assessment results. Being an African
American woman, I believe that we are programmed to pick certain career fields. Most of the
people in the city that I live in picks a career in the health sciences field. I wanted to be different,
and according to my interests, I picked a field that I would enjoy the work that the career choice
details. Working with your hands in the community that I came from gives the notion that it is
work that a male would do such as working with machinery. According to my interest it showed
working with real-world materials such as wood, tools, and doing outside work. I would not
choose a field with this type of work due to my beliefs from the past and it would not be in the
helping field, which is an important value to me.
Completing this assessment, it was during the evening, after I had been to work. Feeling
tired did contribute to the performance of my assessment, but it did not impair my ability to
complete the task. Distractions from being at home, having children, and the phone ringing
played a part of my concentration at times, but it was not a hinderance. The results in my opinion
were only affected by my way of past thinking in career development thoughts when it came to
gender and past influences. While taking the assessments, I did have thoughts about some of the
responses to some of the questions at times. Even though I answered each question as honestly as
I could, the questions asked how much I liked something over other things. Some questions that
were asked did make me think about changing the response to other questions. Some things I
liked the same as others, so I had to just answer with the best possible answer that I could.
Because there are no right or wrong answers to the assessment, it made me feel more
comfortable with the answers that I chose.
Running head: What is God’s Desire in my Career Path?
Conclusions
The results of the assessments related to each other in several ways. It shows you how
your interests and how they fit into choosing your career path. My occupations of interests show
that they fit into the interest results. My vocational personality types fit into my occupations of
interests, and I can express my values in the field. My results of the assessment help me to make
sense of the career path that I have chosen for my life as well as the different activities that I
enjoy. I love helping people which is one of the social type personality traits, and it makes sense
that the career path that I have chosen is counseling. I love going to festivals, concerts, and
different networking activities, which is a part of the social type personality. It put my goals,
needs, and aspirations in a different perspective for me. It brought more understanding to how
and why I perform in the things that I like to do.
In past employment experiences, I have worked in the counseling field. Before getting into
this field, I was in the military working as a mechanic. Although that is a big change, both
employment experience is in my interest profiler results. My job as a mechanic was interesting,
but it was not thought provoking enough for me. I decided to go to school and study a profession
that would grow my interest in helping people. In the counseling field, I have worked with
several different populations and diagnoses that were all fulfilling to me. It has forced me to look
at things through other people’s situations to understand that there is more than one way to
overcome an issue. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,
for those who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28, ESV). This scripture leads me
to believe that God is showing us through our occupations what way he would like us to serve.
Running head: What is God’s Desire in my Career Path?
References
National Center for O*NET Development. (2010). Summary Report: Mental Health Counselors.
(O*Net Report No. 21-1014.00). Retrieved from O*Net Online website:
http://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/21-1014.00
Niles, S. G., & Harris-Bowlsbey, J. (2017). Career development interventions (5th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
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