Writing Assignment #2
SOS-150-OL010
Thomas Edison State College

The text (2013) identifies a job as being “a series of tasks or activities that are performed within the scope of what we call work.” Those tasks are done in exchange for payment; however there it lacks a sense of stability and security. Many individuals maintain jobs when they need income for everyday living expenses. A person that has a passion to work in the field of psychology can work as a cashier at a McDonald’s restaurant. A career is defined as “the integration of our personality with our job activities.” (Sukiennik, Raufman, & Bendat, 2013, p. 9)
The differentiation between what a job and a career is relates to my own career plans because I would definitely like to have a career in the future. I would appreciate for which ever career field that I become integrated into to be an area that I can utilize all of my skills and attributes in. I am currently pursuing a career in professional counseling specializing in adolescent counseling, and I believe that the skills that I have would allow me to be extremely effective. I am ready and willing to continue my pursuit in advancing my education in attempt to land where I am working towards. I want the long term stability that a career has the potential to provide.
After reading about Donald Super’s self-concept theory, I began to think more deeply about how I view myself as an individual, my own personal skills and characteristics, and what my true position in life could be. I soon realized that many of my traits could be quite helpful in the professional counseling field. I have gone through the career selection stages of growth and exploration, and I am currently at the establishment stage. (Sukiennik, Raufman, & Bendat, 2013) I am attending college and working as a teacher’s assistant. I have done some volunteer work as well in an attempt to earn experience for more growth in the field. The values that I believe to be the most important for my overall career satisfactory are; security, stability, education, structure, independence, family, helping others, and relationships.
My MBTI type is INFP; which stands for introvert, intuition, feeling judgment, and perception. (Sukiennik, Raufman, & Bendat, 2013) This type relates to my career because I am the kind of individual that enjoys working one on one with people, pay attention to the factual information, am aware of other people’s feelings, and deal easily with unplanned and unexpected happenings. All of these different qualities can be very useful in the career of counseling. My Holland type is social, and this relates to my career because it describes social individuals as being “sociable, responsible, and concerned with the welfare of others. They have little interest in machinery or physical skills.” (Sukiennik, Raufman, & Bendat, 2013, p. 67) To work efficiently in the field of counseling a professional needs to have those specific qualities to be operative.
The skills that I would like to use in my future career are good communication, active listening skills, critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. I need to develop my critical thinking and decision making skills more thoroughly. I will develop these skills by using my logic and reasoning more often than going off of feelings and emotions. This would assist me in recognizing better approaches to solutions for problems. Making good decisions is what a leader does unconsciously. I need to balance out the different factors more consistently to make the best decision possible under any circumstances.
On the “World-of-Work” map the area that seems to meet my interests, abilities, and values is the social service area. I feel a strong sense of enjoyment when I work with people with a primary goal of helping them. The areas that I have identified for future exploration and research are arts and science and technology. I would like to learn more about those career areas because it would give me more insight in those subject areas; which could possibly have the potential to help me in my career choice. I believe that having knowledge in many different areas helps people succeed more than just knowing a lot about one subject.
At this point in the class, my current thoughts about work and a career are that I need to know my best abilities and apply them to everything that I do. I know now that it is very necessary to use my skills and qualities to not only land a career; however it is extremely important to continue to use and develop them. It is very essential for all employees to integrate their personality traits and strong interests into their work. Every career requires individuals to possess certain personalities in order to appropriately complete their duties.