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Examining Self-Concept through Person Match
Fellow Kuder faculty member, Catalina D’Achiardi-Ressler, and I have been invited to present a workshop at the biennial meeting of the Society for Vocational Psychology (SVP). The meeting will take place June 1, 2007 at the University of Akron, Ohio. The meeting theme is “The Self in Career Theory and Practice”, and we will offer a workshop on Person-Match: Linking Self to Possible Self.
Career counseling has traditionally worked with people in terms of their self-concepts – that is, their beliefs about themselves – whether they are tall or short, smart or not, what they are good at, what they like, what their personalities are like, etc. These self-concepts become the basis for many choices in life, including, particularly, their occupations and their career path.
According to some recent studies, self concept contains future projections of the self – possible selves – which are conceptions of what we would ideally like to be, what we expect to be, and what we really don’t want to be in the future.
The Person Match feature of Kuder Career Search (KCS), one of the assessments offered in the Kuder Career Planning System (KCPS), is a good source for possible selves. In the workshop at the SVP meeting, groups of attendees will be formed that have completed the KCS with Person Match interest assessment and have read about their top-matched careers using the O*NET and the Occupational Outlook Handbook. They will be asked to rate each of their Person Match sketches for how close they are to their ideal, real, and unwanted selves, not unlike what counselors often hear when their students react to their KCS results.
Then, the participants will be asked to role play, pretending to be one of their Person Match sketches, at their 10-year graduating class reunion, and talking with each other about what they have done since they graduated. After about 20 minutes, they will be asked to repeat the ideal, real, and unwanted self ratings. It is expected that there will be a shift in the ratings: that more unwanted selves will shift into real self levels, and some real selves will become ideal selves.
If our expectations for the impact of this method of using the KCS Person Match sketches are supported, we will write up the method more completely for KCPS users to adapt in their work with the system.
Facts about Kuder Career Cluster Occupations
An article by Robert Reardon, Emily Bullock, and Katie Meyer in the current issue of Career Development Quarterly, a National Career Development Association (NCDA) publication, contains some data that may be of interest to Kuder system users.
The authors analyzed the most recent (2000) census employment data in each of the six interest areas (Kuder Career Clusters) used in the Kuder Career Search with Person Match (interest assessment) and Kuder Skills Assessment.
- Arts/Communication
- Business Operations
- Outdoor/Mechanical
- Sales/Management
- Science/Technical
- Social/Personal Services
They found that most of the workforce is employed in Outdoor/Mechanical (30 percent) and Sales/Management jobs (also 30 percent). Social/Personal Services employs 16 percent and Business Operations employs 15 percent. That leaves eight+ percent in Science/Technical work, and a fraction over one percent in Arts/Communication.
But the more interesting material is in the relative proportions of men and women in these percentages. It’s about three men to one woman in Outdoor/Mechanical work, but four women to one man in Business Operations, and three women to one man in Social/Personal Service. It’s almost two men to one woman in Science/Technical and almost an even split in Arts/Communication.
Income by men and women in the six clusters also showed some interesting features. The highest earnings were in Science/Technical: $48,600. (These are 2000 data, remember.) Three clusters were next and just about tied around $33,000: Art/Communications, Social/Personal Services, and Conventional. A near tie for last place at $26,000-27,000 was between Sales/Management and Outdoor/Mechanical. As you might expect, in no cluster did the average yearly income of women exceed that of men.
So, if you value income, Science/Technical occupations are your best bet, but if you are looking for the most opportunities, go for Outdoor/Mechanical or Sales/Management.
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