To introduce Samantha to next steps (more independent research),  I sat with her to sample the process. I created for her a document listing 12 career exploration/education planning websites. I walked her through the first one, which provided data on occupational size, salary, job stability, future prospects, and minimum education. In addition, she could learn from these websites about duties, working conditions, and characteristics of the current workforce (including employment by region).

I asked Samantha to pay attention to feelings and sensations she had in reading about each career. In other words, “Did you feel excited?” “Were you picturing yourself doing this job?” “Did you feel anxious or nervous?” These are important indicators in making career decisions.

So far, Samantha has discovered 2 things: a fascination with Genetics, and a requirement for completing a Masters Degree. She is still in the process of doing her web-based research, plus has since read a book about genetics - this inspired her even more! She loves the idea of grad school, and has also been asking about PhD programs. I have left a message with a Genetics Industry contact of mine giving him a heads-up that Samantha will soon be contacting him for an information interview. Since “interaction” is such an important job search skill, this will prepare Samantha well when she will one day need to access opportunities in the hidden job market through networking.

By the way, Samantha is my oldest daughter. Sydney – you’re next!

Sydney, Linda and Samantha

Another “by the way” – my own MBTI personality type shows up as having the highest participation rate among all personality types for what career? You guessed it – Career Counsellor! Need I say more?

For more information about how to explore career options using the MBTI, please contact me directly through our on-line inquiry form, or call me at (778) 892-8225.

Samantha is passionate about art, so I suggested she do an information interview with a colleague of mine who is a successful artist on the side, yet keeps a day job to pay her bills. This helped Samantha to understand that art could be an option, plus it gave her a glimpse into the reality of pursuing this as her primary career. Typical of her personality type (her report cautions “You may decide too quickly”), she began to rush into plans to enroll in a program at Emily Carr. Since she has also been considering a writing career, I offered her not only another artist contact, but also the names of 2 writers whom she could interview.

Samantha’s introverted style meant she delayed these next steps that required “interaction” (her words); plus enjoying summer vacation took priority for a while. Surely a 16 year old is entitled to this…
I spoke with her throughout the summer, keeping in mind that her preference for introversion also meant she would take her time to process privately what she had learned so far.

I loaned Samantha a book called “Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality” by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron. This invaluable resource presents background information on the use of the MBTI for career planning, plus 16 chapters, each of which is dedicated to one of the personality types. Here, Samantha could read case studies of the career paths of people of her same type, plus themes about what work brings career satisfaction, and an expanded list of popular occupations for her type. Here she began to see a more dominant trend towards science and technical jobs.

Recently, I had the pleasure of helping a young teenage client to explore career options so that she could plan her post-secondary education and choose the pre-requisites she would need in her final 2 years of high school. This client presented a challenge – she was equally right and left-brain gifted, meaning her options were limitless. This young lady won 5 awards for top marks in her grade last year, ranging from excellence in Art to Social Studies, and Community Service.

After a brief discussion about her passions, interests, and grades at school, I requested that Samantha complete an on-line version of the MBTI. “Knowing your personality type, as measured through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® instrument, can help you with career planning at every stage: from your choices of subjects and majors in school to choosing your first career, to advancing in your organization or changing careers later in life. (Click here for more information on MBTI).  Apart from this, knowing her personality type in advance helped me to structure our career planning discussions according to her preferred style of taking in information and making decisions.

After a 90-minute MBTI interpretation session, we became clear on Samantha’s best-fit type. Knowing this is important, and cannot be determined alone by completing the Indicator, as all instruments have limitations. During our session, I helped Samantha to understand her results, and how to use her Career Report. The MBTI® Career Report is organized under the following sections:

• Summary of your MBTI Results
• How Your Type Affects Your Career Choice
• How Your Type Affects Your Career Exploration
• How Your Type Affects Your Career Development, Job Families and Occupations for Your Type (Ranking of Job Families, Most Popular Occupations, Least Popular Occupations).

Her report was consistent with what I knew about Samantha – citing “Most Attractive Job Families” as science/technical,  plus her strengths in writing and art were reflected in the “Moderately Attractive Job Families”.

June 5th marked our first Dependable Strengths information session, at the beautiful Cascade Village venue in central Burnaby.  It took a great deal more preparation than I imagined.  The challenge was to encapsulate into approximately 1-hour, the value and essence of Dependable Strengths.  The program is so rich and unconventional - how to convey this in such a short time?  We strategically designed the content to bring to life the nuggets by using one of our favorite success stories - a past workshop participant named Jesusa.

Jesusa moved here from the Phillipines 10 years ago, and until finding Dependable Strengths, was not able to find the equivalent professional level work that she had done back home.  6 weeks after completing our workshop, she found work in an accounting role in the construction industry - the perfect blend of her strengths in an industry where she has a depth of expertise.  In just 2 short months, her employer has increased her hours to full-time, and is investing in additional training for Jesusa, as she is re-vamping many of their systems already!  What a wonderful way to illustrate the power of this workshop, and to celebrate Jesusa!

Attendees were also taken through a sampling of the process of mining for strengths by sharing with each other their “Good Experiences”.  As is always the case, we received rave reviews about how uplifting and revealing this was.

Another DSAP alumni, Fern, helped out with a compelling role-play of a typical job interview contrasted with the Dependable Strengths interview strategy.  As the interviewee, Fern first showed how most people typically answer the question, “Tell me about yourself” in an ineffective way that is a missed opportunity, versus, in our second version, her much more strategic approach to turn every interview question into an opportunity to demonstrate value by answering the only question on every employer’s mind, “How can you be of value to me?”

We added a few new items to the agenda, to show people how this powerful approach can be used to widen other possibilities in the realm of work.  According to a recent article in the National Post, only 14% of the workforce is in a role that draws on strengths. Further facts about the alarming trend of an underperforming workforce include: the top 16% generate 60% of revenues, the bottom 20% cost companies 20% in revenues, and approximately 23% of payroll is unproductive.  Our info session featured a segment on how to maximize productivity in an environment of downsizing by re-structuring the way that work gets done with existing staff - in other words, by building strengths-based teams.

We are also now offering Personality Dimensions® workshops, which include fun and lively interactive group activities that bring to life the value of structuring teams according to tactical blending of personality temperaments.

WIP now offers customized, full-scale interventions to help organizations re-energize and re-focus their teams. Please CONTACT US if you would like any additional information about any of our workshops.

Graduations are always grand events, filled with celebration.

Trevor and I love nothing better than to put our work under the microscope, and figure out, “How can we make this even better next time?”  This time, I planned a surprise.  Let me give you some background… Because Trevor is an accomplished actor, he and I developed a skit on “how not to network”, which we have now integrated into the workshop.  Since Trevor got the chance to express his passion, I thought it only fair to incorporate one of mine.  Here’s a hint…  “Hello.  My name is Linda Folster, and I am a salsa-holic!”  I called my expert-salsa dancing friend, Amir, and we started out the graduation ceremony with a salsa demonstration. My excuse for doing this was, “In the spirit of no longer doing things you don’t enjoy, don’t do well, and are not proud of – using your Dependable Strengths instead should extend to all areas of your life!”  Rhythm and movement are a few more of my Dependable Strengths that I love to express.  Despite a few technical glitches with the music, and having to do our spins on the carpet – it went surprisingly well.  Deb and Val surfaced from the Dress for Success office to watch.  We had a blast!  Thank you so much, Amir!

Once again, we made each participant don a graduation cap while I read out the “description” section of her Dependable Strengths report – to the tune of Pomp and Circumstance.  Trevor baked amazing cheesecake for the event (fat free, of course!)

On our last day together, this ending marked a new beginning for these women. They gathered together to plan subsequent meetings to sustain the momentum (which are still going on weeks later).  In the past few weeks, some have remained in contact with me.  I love to hear their updates.  From what I am hearing, it seems that important decisions are being made, and there is a quality of peacefulness that’s new.  This seems to accompany an ongoing pondering of what was learned, and what is possible when we believe in ourselves…

Here are some of the great photos from our celebration together: