"Bay Area Employment with the Personal Touch"

CAREER ASSESSMENT

FIVE IMPORTANT STEPS TO FOLLOW IN THE CAREER PLANNING PROCESS
Ron Visconti

Career assessment and career change, together, can be a time-consuming process. Nonetheless, whether you consult with a private or public career professional, or take the career journey on your own, to plan properly, you need to take and not skip any of the following important steps:

1.  Career self-analysis or self-assessment.

This a critical stepping stone for mapping your future career plans. This step includes looking at a variety of important elements that make up you---your unique values, interests, skills, achievements, motivators, personality, as well as your entire life in perspective. This assessment will assist you in looking at patterns of your strengths, weaknesses, work and life preferences, values and interests. Essentially, it is a career barometer — where are you NOW?  (Our needs and circumstances DO change over the course of time.)

2.  Career Research. Looking at the full range of your possibilities: 

Who will hire a person with my skills?
What skills do I have that are transferable?
How do I collect information about potential jobs / careers?
What options do I have? Can I make a viable living?

A job seeker should be a savvy researcher through personal contacts, as well as internet searches and traditional information gathering.

3.  Career Options. Be able to decide and answer a variety of career questions from:

Where do I want to be?
How do I plan to my desired career goal?
What steps do I need to take?
Will I have to go back to school? 
Will I need to do an internship?

4.  Career Marketing Plan. The essential part of this step is developing a marketing plan to start implementing your career goals.

How do you plan to attain your career goals?
What mini-steps can you take?
What internal or external resources do you need?
What specific actions must you take?

5.  Career Implementation.  Ask yourself - Are you reaching your desired results?  If this is not working, evaluation and feedback are critical.

 Finally - What new directions or adjustments do you need to make to achieve your goal?

Career Counseling & Testing

Through the examination of your skills, interests, values, and motivators, you will look at new, meaningful career directions. You will take a variety of interest and personality tests, as well as complete exercises that will help clarify your career goals.

Targeted Populations

Many job seekers do not know how to go about making a career change.  This process will provide you with the necessary steps and is particularly helpful for individuals who wish to look at new career directions, including those who:

• Want to have greater satisfaction in their present jobs
• Feel stuck in their job search and do not know how to focus
• Have just left a job and need to clarify and re-connect with their purpose
• Have been in a long-standing job or industry and want to know what else is out there
• Are second career people who wish to wind down their career, yet still want to make an impact
• Are re-entering the job market after a hiatus.

What’s Included

• Four private one-to- one counseling sessions
• Follow-up visit (beyond the one-to-one four sessions) which must be used within four months of the last counseling session
• Career Assessments including:  Strong Interest Inventory, Campbell Interest and Skill Inventory, Myers Briggs, and other paper and pencil tests
• Learning Guide with exercises to stimulate thought, and ultimately, to create an action plan
• Access to follow-up resources from the career counselor for a period of four months after the final counseling session.
   

About Ron Visconti

Ron Visconti, has a assisted hundreds of career changers through the career change process, from laid off workers to second career strategists.  He has coordinated over 300 Bay Area job fairs, and founded a nonprofit career center, Career Education Center, which he managed for 18 years. He has also written numerous career articles and has appeared on Bay Area radio as a career expert. He has a MA in Adult Education and is an adjunct faculty member of College of San Mateo and previously at Notre Dame de Namur University.  He is presently the Managing Partner of Peninsula Employment Group, LLC, a career event, recruitment, and career services organization.

www.peninsulaemploymentgroup.com

ronvisconti@sbcglobal.net