Joseph Campbell: "Follow your joy"

OUR MISSION

  The mission of Career Decisions International (CDI) is to provide first-class career counseling and consulting services at a reasonable price. We seek to provide our services using the most up-to-date methods and the most current career research available to assist individuals in making the best career decisions. We believe that there are perfect careers out there for every person. We believe that all individuals can be both happy and successful in the right career. No person who is seriously in career turmoil and distress will be turned away because they cannot afford our services. The objective is to help the individual client find that career and assist them in becoming involved in that career.

    Much of what we are doing at CDI is work that should have been done much earlier in a person's life; therefore, it is now remedial work. The basis of our work is the research of such career interest testing pioneers as Edward K. Strong, Jr., John Holland, Anne Roe, Donald Super, and John Krumboltz. We know that career interests are fairly stable by age 15 and the work that we are doing here should have been done while our clients were in high school or college. Because of the economic costs, many school and college counseling staffs have been cutback or eliminated and these services are not being and have not been consistently provided to our students. The results of these cutbacks are now (and will continue to be) haunting us with increases in dissatisfied employees who feel that they are trapped in jobs they dislike, even despise. These shortsighted cost cutting measures have placed the future of our workforce in jeopardy. Adequate career counseling at the appropriate time in a person's life could head off many of these ills. For the individual, however, who is currently in career turmoil and unhappy in their career choice, we can at least now identify their career interest patterns and help them make effective career decisions for the rest of their life.

    CDI is not an employment agency. What we are is a comprehensive professional and ethical career counseling and consultation firm subscribing to the ethical standards of the National Career Development Association, the National Board for Certified Counselors, the American Counseling Association, and the American Psychological Association.

OUR AVAILABLE SERVICES

    The following services are provided as part of CDI's program. In order to achieve maximum benefit from the consultation, the client will be required to complete preparatory tasks prior to the sessions.

    The services which are offered at CDI include all of the various aspects of career counseling and consultation, such as

      o career decisionmaking,
      o career planning and exploration,
      o career interest testing,
      o desensitization and modeling of job seeking behavior, and
      o reinforcement of individual goal setting and followup.

    But, most importantly, we talk to you. We work with you individually to help you arrive at the right career decisions for you and then we help you get what you have decided that you want.

    Services are available for first time career seekers, reentry workers, as well as those needing outplacement or looking to change careers. We have assisted people who need the following services: Career Interest Testing, Personnel Selection Testing, Changing Jobs, Laid Off and Angry, First Timers in the Job Market, Reentering the Workforce, Woman in a Man's World, Feeler in a Thinker's World, Computer Careers, So You Want to be a Manager, and College Major Selection.

OUR STEPS IN CAREER DECISION MAKING

     We provide help in organizing your career decision making process. The general outline of career decisionmaking steps include:

       o career history
       o psychodiagnostic testing and assessment
       o career testing interpretation
       o career research
       o informational interviewing
       o resume preparation
       o campaign organizing and planning
       o career marketing
       o networking
       o interviewing/negotiations strategies

The specific steps in career decisionmaking include:

I. Career Interest Testing
    A. Strong Interest Inventory
    B. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
    C. Work Environment Scale
    D. Values Scale
    E. Vocational Preference Inventory
    F. Self-Directed Search
    G. California Psychological Inventory
    H. Career Beliefs Inventory
    I.  Job Search Barriers Inventory
    J. Career/Lifespan History Questionnaire

II. Career Research and Exploration
    A. The Process -- Developing the career profiles
    B. Market Information
        1. Job market realities
        2. Salary concerns
        3. Employment projections
        4. Work settings
    C. The Informational Interview

III. Reinforcement of Individual Goal Setting and Followup
    A. Setting Goals -- Long term and short term

IV. Desensitization and Modeling of Job Seeking Behavior
    A. Preparing the Proper Tools -- Resume, cover letter, developing contacts (networking)
    B. The Process
    C. The Initial Contact
    D. The Interview
    E. Followup -- Thank you note, call back
    F. Potential Problems in the Adjustment to a New Job
        1. Relating theory to practice: the transition.
        2. Adjusting to work routines: hours, scheduling, deadlines.
        3. Adjusting to corporate structure: business operations/procedures.
        4. Having unrealistic expectations: anticipating too much, too soon.
        5. Developing cooperative attitudes: people differences.
        6. Accepting responsibility, decisionmaking, completing jobs.
        7. Understanding management philosophy: profit motive, survival.
        8. Recognizing inadequacies: finding self unable to cope.
        9. Adjusting to new location: different lifestyle demanded.
      10. Learning to communicate effectively: writing, speaking.

V. Career Planning Cycle -- Career planning as an ongoing process:
    A. Assessment of self: refining self-concept,
    B. Exploration: processing new career information,
    C. Setting goals: making career decisions and plans,
    D. Job seeking: awareness of the employment system and how to effectively access it.

OUR NONDISCRIMINATION POLICY

     Career Decisions International, as an agency, and each of our counselors, as individuals, subscribe to the belief that no person should receive a lower quality of service than any other person because of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or physical ability. Different types of services may be more culturally or individually appropriate and we attempt to maintain cultural and individual sensitivity in all our relationships. If you feel that a counselor has treated you inappropriately or irresponsibly for any reason, please ask to see that counselor's clinical supervisor in order to discuss the matter. Appropriate ethical and legal actions will be taken where justified.

     Both our counselors as well as our clients reserve the right, however, to choose with whom they wish to work. A counselor who meets the needs of one person may be wrong for another. If you are dissatisfied with the services of your counselor: 1) express your concern directly to your counselor if possible; if there is no resolution then 2) seek the advice of the counselor's clinical supervisor; 3) terminate the counseling relationship if the situation remains unresolved; and finally when all else has failed 4) contact the appropriate state licensing board, national certification organization, or professional association if you believe the counselor's conduct to be unethical.

OUR CAREER PLANNING COMPONENTS

Remember that Career Planning here has four components:
     1) Self-assessment of abilities and interests, constraints and opportunities;
     2) Identification of alternative career options
     3) Establishment of career-related goals
     4) Determination of developmental activities necessary to attain the goal.

OUR CAREER ASSESSMENT TOOLS

Strong Interest Inventory by E. K. Strong, Jr.
     The grandparent of all career interest inventories and the most widely researched and used.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator by K. Briggs and I. B. Myers.
     This general personality inventory is based on the work of C. G. Jung and provides a good way of identifying person/work environment fit.

Values Scale by Donald Super and Dorothy Nevill.
     Originally titled the Work Values Inventory, this inventory is used to identify which of twenty different work values are most important to an individual. Has been successfully used in many different countries.

Work Environment Scale by Rudolph Moos.
     Provides a snapshot of the ideal work environment for the person.

Self-Directed Search by John Holland.
     A self-administered survey to aid in occupational exploration.

Vocational Preference Inventory by John Holland.
     Used to verify the general occupational themes on the Strong.

California Psychological Inventory by Harrison Gough.
      This general personality inventory is used in personnel selection and has scales on Managerial Potential and Work Orientation.

Career Beliefs Inventory by John Krumboltz.
      This inventory is designed to measure the cognitive attitudes a person has which might get in their way of being successful in their career.

Job Search Barriers Inventory by Joann Jelly and Mark Pope.
      This inventory is designed to measure the affective issues which might get in the way of a person being successful in their job search, occupation, or career decision.