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Gap Year Hazards

5/3/2016

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Brought to national attention in recent days by President Obama’s daughter's decision to delay Harvard admission by one year, arguments for high school graduates pursuing a Gap Year before college are quite compelling including developing greater understanding of career interests before settling on a college major. Having passed from the inherent pressure of compulsory education, exploring new or long stifled interests through travel, volunteer experience or generally non-academic pursuits seems like a logical step toward clarifying career goals, and generally healing oneself before embarking toward the college and career pursuit climb into adulthood. While all of this may be true, there are some definite potential hazards to consider before pursuing such a period of hopeful enlightenment.

1. Gap Programs Costs
If your going to do it, do it right - sign up for a Gap Year program. Often spanning a typical academic year and including international travel, these programs offer a wide array of opportunities for personal enrichment, new skill development and volunteering experience. While this arguably seems idyllic, be aware that although many offer possible financial assistance, these programs are typically quite expensive - some in the 10K - 20K range.

2. Missing a Year
While a Gap Year may be invigorating, you could earn a year of college credits while at the same time potentially discovering the same or more about yourself through the college experience. You could have even prepared yourself for a far less expensive upcoming study-abroad experience from which you could further earn college credit.

3. A Simpler Alternative
Perhaps not seemingly as exciting, a simple career assessment and a few hours of consultation would likely offer you as much or more self insight to help you shape your career interests into confidently-made decisions. Fulfilling as world travel may be, career assessment and consultation can help you simply see how everything you enjoy relates to the career world so that you can begin constructing a unique strategy for your long- term career success.

Don't get me wrong, everything about a Gap Year sounds wonderful. How could anyone argue with the advantages of exploring the world, helping others, and developing diverse friendships from such an experience. My argument is simply that for those for whom such an experience is financially impractical, great benefit can be gained from a far less costly and timely career assessment and consultation experience. If you are ready to extinguish the anxiety of your career indecision and begin creating a plan with the highest likelihood of long-term career success, EPIC Career is here to help.

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First Semester Bust!

12/31/2015

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Did your first college semester not go so well? Were you surprised to learn that the major that you long planned to pursue really wasn't your fit when you began taking related courses? The key now is to find your fit as soon as possible to save you time and tuition costs and so that you don't earn unneeded coursework by graduation. Many believe that internship, volunteer and other short-term job opportunities are the main answers to this conundrum, but the reality is that you do not even know in what professional field to focus these efforts. This is where career assessment and consultation comes in.

​At EPIC Career, our assessments compare your responses to those of thousands of men and women who have indicated preferences for particular career fields and college majors from more than 50 years of solid research. Even if you are comfortable in your career focus, wouldn't you like to know what all these individuals just like you have for so long indicated to be their preferred career fields? From this knowledge, we help you make sense of your past and present interests to make a college major and career plan that offers the highest possible likelihood for a lifetime of career success. Sign up now, and you can move into next semester with confidence in a new long-term college major and career plan that will work, lose the anxiety of uncertainty, and have fun in college. This will help you not just in immediate course planning, but also in internship and volunteer pursuits and networking preparation for the big job when you graduate or graduate school. When you are ready to build this kind of solid confidence in your career direction, EPIC Career is ready to help!
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career assessments myth #1: i know what i am doing so i have no need for career assessment

7/29/2014

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Myth 1: I know what I am doing, so I have no need for career assessment.

False!

Are you sure about jumping into that career field? From my experience working with clients about career and college major choice issues, I can often fairly quickly see how a career choice might or might not be a long-term career fit. Actually, sometimes it is a great fit and I breathe a huge sigh of relief. But far too often, I know that the choice is a terrible mistake. 

Why does it bother me to learn that someone is about to embark upon a career from which they are not likely to find long-term satisfaction? First, I think about their future disenchantment with the choice and what a blow to their future self-confidence it will be. Secondly, I think of all of the resources (time, energy, tuition and certification expenses) the individual will personally invest. Finally, I hate to think that the American taxpayers are about to potentially loan that student tens of thousands of dollars to pursue a program that might only lead to disappointment.

So when I hear "This program has great job prospects" or "I have a friend who did that program and everything turned out great for them," my response is "Are you sure that you are completely confident about spending or borrowing all those many thousands of dollars on this program that you are not quite entirely sure will work for you?" Are you sure you don't want to know what more than 60 years of solid research suggests would be highly likely to be an ideal fit for you?" 

Before spending all those thousands, wouldn't it be wise to explore a wider set of options that will offer you understanding of clear pathways for your future career success? Whatever your college major or career decisions, wouldn't this knowledge help you breathe easier as you make them? At EPIC Career, we are here to help.
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Career Assessments Myth #3: Only About Careers?

3/24/2014

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Myth 3: The information revealed about yourself from a career assessment relates only to your career.

False!

Career Picture, Life Picture

It is often surprising to clients that our meetings reveal more to them about themselves than just career-related data. In the first hour or two of the consultation, we explain a couple of frameworks that help to explain basically how you are different from others. From this, you begin to learn not only about your unique ways of experiencing the world, but you also begin seeing aspects of yourself that you may have neglected because of any number of life circumstances. The goal is to help you see your natural talents and how they can be optimally applied to careers.

As we progress through this discussion, however, you may begin to understand how past experiences have shaped your everyday behaviors, both at work as well as your everyday life. Then, we begin the process of helping you fully comprehend what you truly enjoy in life and how your life may need to change in fundamental ways to achieve that happiness. While no one has an entirely ideal support system in place in their lives to help them move toward their ideals, from this discussion you may discover that you have more opportunities to make changes than you might have originally thought!

Yes, career choice is a personal, individual decision and we at EPIC Career are committed to helping you sort through the many aspects of your life to discover just how you can move toward your ideal career goals. Are your current career prospects weighing you down in ways that stifle potential happiness in the rest of your life? Are you ready to move forward in your career in ways that will move your entire life forward toward your ideals? At EPIC Career, we are here to help.    

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Career Assessments Myth #4: Individual Choice?

3/21/2014

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Myth 4: You must choose one of the professions listed on a career assessment to achieve career success.

False!

Your Career Fit

Consultation with career assessments includes discussion of a wide range of facets of the client’s personality including their preferred ways of understanding new information, decision making and organizing their environments. Once we reach the point in the discussion of considering a career focus, clients have unearthed a new, expanded perspective about their innate talents and skills that they most enjoy using. By this point, clients have often developed an understanding of what professions would likely prove to be a strong fit for them and, of those, which specifically they might want to pursue. If they have not, the professional titles are available from the assessments. We then review commonalities across the professions to gain a picture of the main elements of a career that would be optimal for the client.

Career choice is a personal decision and the fit is as unique as each individual. Whether they move forward with a profession listed on the assessments or not, from this discussion, an individual career plan emerges.

Do you feel like you go to work each day without excitement or passion? Do you seek a job that you will enjoy and a career that you can foresee enjoying throughout the long term? At EPIC Career, we are here to help.    


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Career Change or Career Reframe?

3/12/2014

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Client Question: I've felt dissatisfied for a while now in my career, but I'm not sure that I want to resign and go back to school, either. I feel stuck. Any advice?

EPIC Career Answer: This may surprise you - you could be in the right place already without knowing it. Yes, many of my adult clients embark upon major life changes as a result of my consultations with them. Typically, they begin college courses or start networking toward new career fields. However, I am amazed at how many of my clients do not change jobs. These non-job changers usually have one thing in common: they did not know that they had made many wise career-related decisions already. 

Career Rut

Often, the aspects of their jobs that they dislike have been glaring at them for so long that they have forgotten about the positive aspects. These individuals are often highly successful in their careers. What they hadn’t considered much lately are the many decisions throughout their lives that led them to where they are today. These decisions are not mistakes; rather, they have led to many real, positive results.

Once we examine their career assessment results together, they often begin to see their background in a more realistic light. While their results often describe job titles that they had never before considered, they also include valuable information like the client's preferred work environments, learning style, leadership style and other information. These data help them organize their past career decision-making into a sequence of events that have allowed them to develop many of their innate talents and successfully adapt their weaknesses. 

Same Career, Different Perspective

The conversation then shifts from "How can I get out of this job?" to "How can I adapt my behavior at work such that I continue to be successful, but also feel fulfilled in other aspects of my life?" We will then likely examine the ways in which changing a few basic habits in the course of a normal workday can go a long way toward building a new perspective about their current jobs. It can also help them see how they might pursue new non-work related interests that may help develop the whole person, beyond just their identity at work. 

Are you feeling unsure about your career choices of the past? Do you feel stuck in a career that you dread potentially spending the rest of your life pursuing? Do you think you have potential for success in your current job field, but need some help figuring out how to make it more satisfying? If so, at EPIC Career we are here to help.

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The Top 5 Myths about Career Assessments

3/11/2014

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For the next several posts, I will be counting down the top 5 myths individuals I’ve worked with tend to believe about career assessments. Stay tuned for the complete list!

Myth 5: Assessments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) and Strong Interest Inventory® generate 100% flawless results.

False!

So how can I vouch for them as a career consultant? The answer is that these assessments, including the MBTI are not intended to be used without the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Unlike a medical test, for example, that confirms whether a patient is carrying a certain virus, psychological instruments point to general tendencies. They are not designed to be provide a diagnosis! Rather, the responses on the instrument can serve as a lens through which to understand the client. I also advise clients to try to answer as though they are living in an “ideal world” to try to prevent responses that are provided because the client thinks that s/he “should” answer a particular way.

A Personal Example

For example, my wife took the MBTI as part of a requirement in a college course. When the professor scored the assessment and gave each student his/her profile, my wife did not recognize herself on the description. Then, the professor placed students into groups with their similar “type” so that they could find commonalities amongst each other. Again, my wife felt like a fish out of water in this group. For this reason, she did not hold much faith in the MBTI assessment at all.

Years later, she re-took the exam. This time, however, she tried to answer with the “ideal world” framework in mind. It revealed that one critical point of her prior results were inaccurate. With this correction, her entire profile changed, revealing a profile with which she really identified.  It was a genuine “Eureka!” kind of moment. With these new results, she better understood why her current field of study and career prospects were not such a good fit.

Understanding Inaccurate Results

 So why were her first results so skewed? That is a complicated answer, and it points to why it is so necessary to discuss results with an experienced practitioner. In her case, Western culture tends to exalt certain preferences – like logic, hard science, and rationality – above other preferences, such as empathy, cooperation, and emotion. When she answered the assessment the first time, it became clear that she was answering what she considered the right, university-approved kind of answers should be. She knew those initial answers did not reflect how she saw herself, but she blamed the instrument, rather than the way in which the assessment was administered.

This case is actually common. My goal for each client is to help him or her see how our world needs people who embody all of these types, despite what our culture tends to reinforce. In sum, no career assessment is intended to be fool-proof. Take your raw results as a starting point for a rich discussion about yourself. At EPIC Career, we are here to help.

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Email:  info@epiccareer.net
San Antonio, Texas 78209