For many of us, we have a resume, perhaps a LinkedIn profile—neither of which are ways to explore who we want to be or what to do. Some people work through questions and issues in a journal or to-do list.
Let us start with ourselves first. We’ll explore your fuel, skills, relationships, perspectives, and expectations. This isn’t a way to define you. It is just a starting framework.
Exploring Preferred Environments
Sometimes we work hard to fit our great skills into possible jobs, yet the mix we create lands us in a situation where we are not happy. Has that happened to you?
John Holland created a tool—the Holland Code—to help us examine the environments and people that we enjoy. He developed this methodology after a lot of research and exploration of why people miss having good matches between their environments and talents.
It isn’t a “truth” about you. Instead, the Holland Code process can be a lens to think about the work settings that make you more comfortable—settings that match how you deal with environments and ways that you deal with problems and opportunities.
Source: California Career Zone, https://cacareerzone.org/quick
How Can a Test Help?
Assessment tools are just one method to uncover parts of your stories and skills that you can design around. One past participant commented that to them, the Holland Code is like a horoscope, in that anything can seem correct. Others have noted that the results are dependent on the mood you are in that day or bad things that may have happened most recently. Researchers have found that changes by mood and over time are actually small on average.
Think of the Holland Code exercises as a storytelling device to consider some evidence in the story that you live in and ways that you can design the type of environments you seek to be ones that match your own ways of working and skills a bit better.
If you can drive the plot, what might your character (you!) enjoy?
A Quick Test
First, here’s a quick fun (and free) graphic test to work with the Holland Code and think about where you can place yourself, before taking any further assessments:
https://www.cacareerzone.org/quick
Do a quick Holland Code assessment in the graph. Write down your choices from this quick exercise, plus what you found in terms of possible jobs. Take a look at the descriptions for each of the RIASEC elements at https://www.cacareerzone.org/guide/hollandcode/1 .
Did they match your interests that you had already thought about?
Were they a quirky mismatch?
In class, we did a second Holland Code test.
- Rogue Community College Holland Code QuizLinks to an external site.: This college created a fun quiz that may help you find a different way to your Holland Code letters. It also leads to O*NET (see the Assessment Page). I answered many of the questions Yes, and yet it took me to my Holland Code that I usually pick just with the questions and jobs like Video Game Designer in O*NET (https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/15-1255.01?redir=15-1199.11Links to an external site.).
Delve Deeper
Time permitting, we will continue with prompted writing in class.
Prompt 1:
Write down your favorite magazines and websites that you go to at least once a week. What Holland Code letters do they line up with? This can help show where your interests line up and what you are drawn to.
Prompt 2:
Next, write down your favorite TV show (or YouTube or TikTok channel). Why is it your favorite? What would you tell a friend as to why this show is important to you?
Prompt 3:
Think of it as the archeology of your life. What do you see in what you already do that tells you what you are passionate about and the type of environment that you like? Do you enjoy ideas? “Things”? Connecting with people? Systems?
Why this is important to you is a more interesting question than what.
Dr. Mark Savickas from Northwestern Ohio University, one of the top experts in social constructivism in careers, talked with a group of undergraduates in the same major who all loved The Gilmore Girls. Each person had a very different story about what they saw in the show. Those different stories—whether they are drawn to the mother-daughter relationships, the daughter’s challenges, etc.—led to different types of career roles.
Link to Information on Narrative Construction of Careers (if this is of interest): Warwick Univ, UK
Prompt 4: After-class thinking
Look around your own spaces in your apartment or dorm room. What books are on your shelves? What items are in your home? If you were an archaeologist, what would the items in the rooms tell you about the person who lives there? Why?