Career Key Support Portal

One-on-One Advice

We know it’s important to give discoverers relevant and meaningful advice. For that reason, we tailor the Assessment Results in CKD to the three most common personality patterns (see next section).

Using our recommended best practices, guides can expand the impact and understanding of results through direct follow up, especially using CK Central’s Let’s Connect email message templates and one-on-one conversations with discoverers.

Advice and resources for all discoverers

1. Encourage discoverers to explore options for their top two personality types.  This advice is good for everyone, regardless of their scores. Some careers and programs of study are an even or nearly even split between personality types. By only looking at one type, a discoverer could miss an option that may be a great fit.
2. Keep in mind that there is no meaningful (statistical) difference between scores of 5 points or less.  The closer they are together, the more important it is for broader exploration of types. 
3. Identify obstacles discoverers have to decision making and help them overcome them. Some may be small and easy to fix like a lack of information, while others may be more complex.  See Decision Making advice below.
4. Provide discoverers practical, easy to access resources for researching options and making a decision. A few examples:

a. For each career, provide a list of people working in that career who are willing to serve as a resource through informational interviews: teachers, community contacts, school alumni, or parents of alumni.

b. For each program of study, provide a list of students studying that program, program graduates, or professors teaching in that program who are willing to serve as a resource through informational interviews.

c. Ask discoverers to complete a Decision Balance Sheet for their top two or three options and discuss their responses. Learn more: how to use this balance sheet

Keep in mind some limitations

Like any scientific theory and assessment, Holland’s Theory and CKD have limitations. Holland’s six personality types are constructs or concepts. They are guidelines, not boxes in which people must fit. People vary in how closely they match these personality types; and their scores are not positive or negative indicators.

So if a discoverer asks questions about their results, use the opportunity to start an in-depth conversation about who they are.  Ask what scores or elements of a personality type feel like a fit or not for the discoverer. This inquiry reveals insights about the person, clarifying their personality match. Career Key sees the assessment results as the beginning, not end of the discovery process.

Assessing Holland’s personality types and the discovery process in CKD is just one way for discoverers to learn about themselves and the most compatible environments that research shows are more likely to lead to their success.

Differentiated – consistent score pattern

Some discoverers have one or two personality types that clearly stand out with the highest scores, which we call differentiated. 

We label one or two top types as “Thriving” work or education environments. Here is an example of their assessment results:

Common discoverer characteristics

• Clearer sense of themselves with a stronger self-identity
• May already have a career or program choice in mind

Recommended advice

• A close match is important: Choose a career or program that matches one of your top two personality types. Due to the strength of your personality scores, you’re likely to be unhappy and unsuccessful in an environment that doesn’t match.
• Go one step further: Even if you’re very strong in one type, it’s important to explore your second highest type too. Sometimes there are career or programs that match at almost equal levels of strength both your top type and your second highest type.
• Challenge your assumptions: If you came into CKD with a firm idea of what you wanted to do, take a moment to consider other matching options you might not have thought about before. Explore all of CKD’s groups for that personality type. Now is the time to gather more information, independent of friends and parents.

Resources to suggest

• Decision making process: Download and complete a Decision Balance Sheet.
• Informational interviews: Talk to people working in that career or studying in that program to gather more information before making a decision.
• Higher education institutions: Provide information about the discoverers’ top program choices that includes contact information for students, faculty and administrators who can answer questions.

Differentiated – inconsistent score pattern

A few discoverers have high scores in two personality types that are opposites on the Holland Hexagon, referred to as an inconsistent personality pattern. These are types that don’t seem to go together. Their CKD Assessment Results say,

You combine interests and abilities in an unusual way.

Your unusual combination of two incompatible types gives you advantages in certain work and program environments.

Common discoverer characteristics

• May have grown up in a household with parents/guardians with opposite personality types. For example, one partner rewards practicality and hands on skills (Realistic), the other rewarded helping people and interests in solving social problems (Social).
• May have difficulty choosing a career or program due to these opposite interests
• May have difficulty adapting to the career or program they choose
• May have difficulty understanding themselves

Recommended advice

• You are not abnormal or an “inconsistent” person: We all have differing gifts; value your uniqueness.
  Turn this pattern into an advantage: Some careers and programs combine personality types in this unusual way. For example, a Realistic career with a Social employer, like teaching carpentry in a vocational secondary school. Or an Assistive/Rehabilitation Engineering (Realistic) program of study used to help design mobility devices for the disabled (Social).
• Create a career or program environment that fits you – your own niche. Within an industry, you can find places where your unusual combinations make you stand out for a career. You may be able to design an education program and choose classes to support your interests.
• If you are Realistic-Social/Social-Realistic, or Investigative-Enterprising/Enterprising-Investigative, there are many examples of careers and programs that fit these combinations. Visit Career Key’s article on Inconsistent Personality Types for more.

Resources to suggest

• Career Key’s YouTube video, “Inconsistent Personality Patterns,” and web article.
• Decision making process: Download and complete a Decision Balance Sheet.
• Informational interviews: Talk to people working in that career or studying in that program to gather more information before making a decision.
• Consult with a career counselor or academic advisor: Professionals can help you explore your CKD results further and introduce you to more activities and resources to help clarify your choices.

Undifferentiated score pattern

Some discoverers have high scores in three or more personality types, referred to as an undifferentiated personality pattern. Their CKD Assessment Results look like this,

Because you have mixed interests and abilities, check out our advice to narrow your focus and find the opportunities that fit. See Career Key’s YouTube video, “Flat (Undifferentiated) Personality Profile”

Common discoverer characteristics

• Lacks clarity of direction, with a less-developed self-identity
• May be interested in lots of things and excited about all the possibilities
• May not be ready to make a decision and needs extra help

Recommended advice

• Verify your scores: In Assessment Results, read the definition of each of your strongest personality types in the blue shaded box toward the bottom of the page. Rate each statement on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being “Not Like Me” and five being “Like Me.” This will help you gain insights into personality characteristics that really resonate with you and those that don’t. Feel free to view your results differently after you gain these insights.
• Try something new and learn more about yourself: Doing activities that involve different types of work, paid or volunteer, will help you identify more of what you like or dislike about people and the environments in which they gather (career or program).

Resources to suggest

• Career Key’s YouTube video, “Flat Personality Profile”
• Decision making process: Download and complete a Decision Balance Sheet.
• Informational interviews: Talk to people working in that career or studying in that program to gather more information before making a decision.
• Consultation with a career counselor or academic advisor: Professionals can help you explore your CKD results further and introduce you to more activities and resources to help clarify your choices.

Retakes

Discoverers are allowed to retake Career Key Discovery once. They can do so from their Profile page, where they see their saved careers and education programs.

Before they can retake the assessment, they will see a warning pop up.

Although discoverers will not be able to see their first set of assessment results, you as the counselor can see both in CK Central when you click on their name to see Discoverer Detail. Click on the top tabs to navigate between them.

Decision Making

You want to help discoverers decide which program or career is the best fit for them. After completing the assessment and saving some promising options to their Profile, a discoverer may need your help to make a choice. Here are some ways to do that:

• Have them watch the Career Key Decision Tools video about ACIP Decision Making.
• Offer to help the discoverer apply the ACIP Decision Making Process to their top choices.  Try discussing with them a Decision Balance Sheet they’ve completed.
• Identify any obstacles and help the discoverer make plans to overcome them. A common source of indecision is a lack of information.  Others may include: finances, childcare and family obligations, and disability.
• Ensure discoverers can easily access information about their top choices, including possible contacts for informational interviewing.  If you are in college admissions or student success, that means strategies like connecting potential students with faculty and current students in a program they’re considering.

Indecision

Indecision is not unusual, especially for in the teen years and 20’s, when a person’s personality and abilities are developing. Discoverers’ values, abilities, skills and talents are emerging. And sometimes a person doesn’t know themselves well enough; adult considering a career change may have not have taken the time recently to self-reflect and consider where they are in their lives.

Discoverers with Three or More Top Types are more likely to be undecided, so make sure to offer the advice mentioned earlier in this section. It may take more time for these discoverers to clarify their focus, but their efforts will be worth it.