1. Part 3: Factors that Should Influence Career Choice
What Career Do I Want? Knowing Yourself, Your Priorities, Your Desired Lifestyle, and Knowing how those Factors should Influence Your Career Path.
Part 3: Factors that Should Influence Career Choice

2. Basic Factors that Should Influence Your Career Choice
Your Interests, Talents, Skills, Aptitudes, and Abilities (already discussed)
Your Values
Your Personality Type
Lifestyle Goals/Priorities

3. Interests, Talents, Aptitudes, Skills, and Abilities
All of these should play a role in choosing your career because:
If you are interested in a certain area, you will be more likely to stick with it and be willing to devote your time to excelling in that area.
Talents and aptitudes can make it easier to learn skills required by your career—which may result in achieving your goals in a timelier fashion and/or with less frustration.
The experience that comes from building a skill into an ability will set you apart from other people with the same interests who have NOT taken the initiative to build necessary skills.

4. Values
Values will change at different times throughout your life. However, there is usually a core set of values that will determine what career/job is acceptable or not. The six general core values are:
Compassion
Recognition
Courage
Responsibility
Achievement
Relationships

5. Values
Compassion- Compassion is caring and empathizing deeply with people and/or creatures.
Example of how this may affect a job or career decision:
Pretend that you decided to become a scientist. You were offered two positions:
A position on a lead team of scientists whose job it is to test highly controversial drugs on animals that may be highly effective in treating chronic diseases, but also have been recorded to have incredibly adverse and/or lethal side-effects. Your job is to test combinations and dosages of drugs on the animals until a “winning combination” is found. Your starting salary would be $85,000.
A position as a research assistant at a pharmaceutical company that is against animal testing. Your research assistant position is an entry-level position would be a mix of lab-time under the tutelage of a more experienced scientist and office work. Your starting salary would be $50,000
Which would you choose?

6. Values
Courage- Courage is the ability to overcome difficulty or to conquer fear and/or despair Example of how this may affect a job or career decision: You have been at a job for three years. You have consistently shown excellent work ethic and have even taken initiative on numerous projects that ended up being very successful. You hear that there is an opening for a promotion to a position with more responsibility and higher pay. You hear from co-workers that your boss has already considered one person who may be nice but isn’t nearly as qualified as you. You try to shrug it off as office gossip. However, two weeks pass and your boss still hasn’t approached you about being considered for this promotion. Do you talk to your boss about it?

7. Values
Achievement- If you value achievement, it means that you want to succeed in whatever you do. Example of how this may affect a job or career decision:

8. Values
Recognition- If you value recognition, you want other people to appreciate and respect your accomplishments. You want to be rewarded for your work. Example of how this may affect a job or career decision: You work in the public sector where although the salary is excellent, layoffs are strictly made by seniority. You work incredibly hard at your job, spending extra hours going above and beyond what is required of you. However, not much is said to you in terms of recognition or appreciation. At the end of two years, you find out that you are losing your job– even though there is a person who has been there 20 years and there is proof that he/she has been consistently performing on an average or below-average level.

9. Values
You then take a job in the private sector that provides a moderately to significantly lower salary. However, your boss and colleagues support your efforts, and you are constantly being recognized for your achievements. You are happier than you have ever been at your old job. Six months later, you receive a call from your old public-sector job. They told you that a person retired and therefore, you are able to have your old job back. Although you are still on the bottom on the seniority list, they will give you a $5,000 raise from your initial salary. Do you go back to your old job?

10. Values
Responsibility- If you hold responsibility as a strong value, this means that you enjoy fulfilling obligations in a dependable, trustworthy way. Example of how this may affect a job or career decision: You have been working as a math teacher for the past five years. You have been offered a position as an instructional specialist in your department. Although the stipend is small and would require approximately 5-12 extra hours a week, you would be given a leadership position with significant responsibilities. Do you take the position?

11. Values
Relationships- If you value relationships, this means that your family and friends are important to you. Example of how this may affect a job or career decision: You have been at a position that you are relatively satisfied with for several years. You enjoy the company you work for, but feel that you are outgrowing your position. Your boss comes to talk to you one day and offers you a major promotion- it would basically be your dream job with this company. The catch: Since your job is a global company, this position requires you to move to England. What do you tell your boss?

12. Personality Type
Your personality type should be a factor in determining your career because some personality characteristics may help you succeed in a certain profession.
Likewise, certain professions absolutely require a certain type of personality. Although you could technically work in that profession even if you don’t carry those personality traits, you may be very uncomfortable or find a lot of frustration in doing so.

13. Lifestyle Goals
Lifestyle Goals are the ways you want to spend your time, energy, and resources and the importance that you place on each.
Lifestyle Goals/Priorities include:
Where you want to live
Whether or not you want to have a family
How much time you want to devote to other hobbies and interests
What you ultimately want to accomplish in life
How much money you want to make for the lifestyle you want (do you want to make a lot of money or are you okay with just making enough to be comfortable?)

14. Lifestyle Goals
Remember that everyone is different . As a result, there are no right or wrong answers in determining your lifestyle goals.
The important part is that you are honest with yourself and make decisions about your career with them in mind.

15. Activity
Working independently, complete “Where Do Your Lifestyle Priorities Lie?” worksheet .