Workforce and Business Welcome Kit

Want to learn how to use Career Key Central to view and manage your students’ activity? For the CDP, see Support> Manage CDP Clients, for CKD, see Support> Manage CKD Discoverers.

Time to Complete

4 minutes

Overview

This Welcome Kit helps you implement Career Key with your workforce development, employee career advising, or nonprofit program.  Whether you use one or both of our assessments, Career Decision Profile (CDP) and Career Key Discovery (CKD), you’ll find implementation guidance and downloads here. No special credential or degree is required to administer Career Key – just take advantages of all the videos and articles on this website.

Depending on how you advise clients, adapt these Career Key resources to fit your program. If you’d like to suggest a resource, let us know by submitting a feedback ticket here.

Takeaways

  • Get started with our implementation planning guide
  • Implement using plans and activities that you can download
  • Take advantage of related resources for interpreting assessment results, NACE career competencies, and funding for Career Key
  • Learn how Holland’s Theory and career well-being lead to long-term, positive client outcomes from our research e-Books

A. Getting Started

Implementation Planning Guide

Overview – combine assessments to maximize benefits

Get to know your clients better, faster

With Career Key, your client or employees (clients) can gain life- and career-changing insights about their career decision needs, personality, interests, skills and values. They can use this information to move forward on their decision journey, identifying best fit career options and postsecondary programs where they will thrive.

Research shows that a close fit between a person’s strongest Holland personality types and postsecondary education programs predicts higher grades, persistence in a program and higher on-time graduation rates.

Career Key’s career decision platform combines two scientifically valid assessments,

  • the 5-minute Career Decision Profile (CDP) measure of career decision status, and
  • the 10-minute Career Key Discovery (CKD) interest inventory based on Holland’s Theory,
    whose results are all displayed in the group administration portal, Career Key Central.

You can administer either one on its own, but we recommend administering both to maximize their benefits.

For maximum benefit, consider making a pre/post “sandwich”, where a client’s 1st CDP completion (pre-intervention) is the bottom slice of bread, the intervention (CKD) is the filling, and the client’s 2nd CDP completion (post-intervention) is the top slice of bread.

You get data to measure the impact of Career Key Discovery and your activities on clients’ career development, and they get to share what’s changed for them as a result of the activity. All with just 5 minutes of additional client time retaking the CDP.

Key Facts: How the Career Decision Profile assessment works

  • Takes clients about 5 minutes to complete the inventory
  • Mobile and tablet friendly
  • Self-interpreting, individualized explanation of assessment results, recommended next steps to keep making progress on their decision-making journey
  • Clients receive a shareable PDF report with results and their recommended next steps
  • Advisors see estimated levels of service for each client in Career Key Central, in addition to detailed results
  • Pre and post intervention administration provides scientifically valid data on multiple dimensions of career decision status including:
    > Decidedness
    > Comfort
    > Self-Clarity
    > Knowledge of Careers and Education Options
    > Decisiveness
    > Career Choice Importance
    > Existence of barrier(s) (Capacity for Progress)
    > Other Factors (optional fill-in)

Key Facts: How the Career Key Discovery assessment works

  • Takes clients about 10 minutes to complete
  • Mobile and tablet friendly
  • Scientifically valid Holland personality and interest inventory
  • Self-interpreting, individualized explanation of assessment results, including environments that the student will find thriving, promising, and challenging
  • Clients can filter and explore best-fit careers and education programs by education required, duration, type of award
  • Students receive a shareable PDF report (sample) with results and their selected options

Shared Learning Goals

Practical goals advisors have shared with us include…

  1. Help clients explore how they feel about where they are, and understand they are supported
  2. Understand how ready each client is to make a decision about a career or education program
  3. Learn more about clients’ unique decision needs, including other factors not otherwise known to the advisor
  4. Increase clients’ awareness of themselves – their interests, personality, and values,
  5. Help clients relate their personal characteristics to occupations and education programs,
  6. Expand the career and postsecondary education options clients are considering,
  7. Stimulate clients’ career exploration, such as, discussing possible careers and training programs with others and doing online research,
  8. Increase clients’ confidence in their ability to make good career and education choices

Career Key meets professional standards in career readiness competencies, such as

Step by Step Implementation

Below we describe three steps to implementation. The List of Advising Downloads in the next Implementation section contains all client and advisor materials mentioned below.

Step 1. Preparation

  • Decide when taking the CDP and CKD fit into your program.
  • Review the Welcome Kit materials and adapt resources as needed.
  • You may wish to take the assessments yourself to see the client perspective (as well as the Profile report)
  • Know the URLs for each of your assessment plug ins, so you can share them with clients. To find them, go to the Gear icon top right of Career Key Central> My Organization> Technical tab.
  • Learn how to use Career Key Central to monitor and follow up with clients.

Step 2. Student Engagement

  • Optional: Administer the CDP. Remember you can invite clients to take either assessment using Let’s Connect in Career Key Central.
  • Optional Post Assessment Activities
    • Find My Fit – group activity on the six Holland RIASEC Types/ Work Groups

Step 3. Reflection: Gather and Share Data

  • Optional: Administer the CDP again; clients have the option to share comments about what’s changed for them
    • Group Discussion: Clients share their responses to the CDP
  • Want clientsto learn more online after completing Career Key Discovery? Go to the Fit Focus Forward Resources section of Career Key’s website.

B. Implementation

First we’ll do a quick overview, and then provide links to all the downloads you’ll need.

Lesson Planning

Taking Assessments & Follow Up Activities

Depending on your program, you can deliver parts of it asynchronously, and/or combine these activities into one meeting or over multiple days. The learning activities are optional and enable clients to further explore how to connect their personality type with careers that fit.

You may wish to familiarize yourself with the assessments by …

Instruction

1. Introduction to Career Key and take Career Decision Profile (15 minutes)

  • Introductory Power Point Slides: Take Career Decision Profile, Take Career Key Discovery, Introduction to Career Key (5 min.)
  • Watch Video: Career Decision Profile Overview https://vimeo.com/480498917 (2:10 minutes)
  • Take Career Decision Profile (5 minutes)

2. Take Career Key Discovery (20-30 minutes)

  • Watch Video: Career Key Discovery Overview https://vimeo.com/392542053 (2.25 minutes)
  • Watch video: Career Profile Decision Tools https://vimeo.com/409021237 (4:25 minutes)
  • Share the link to the Career Key Discovery assessment (Find it in Career Key Central> My Organization> Technical)
  • Clients will progress through these sections: (10 minutes)

1. Welcome: Client sign in – first name, last name, email

2. Take Assessment – (allow 5-10 minutes)

3. Assessment Results – clients learn about their thriving, promising and challenging environments; and their top 2-3 RIASEC Types (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional)

4. Explore Careers and Majors/Programs – clients explore thriving and promising careers and education programs – and bookmark or save ones that interest them

5. Career Profile – a summary of their assessment results and selected careers and programs

Note: Clients can sign in later to “Explore Careers and Majors/Programs”

3. Follow up Learning Activities: Clients explore 2-3 careers in their strongest personality types.

  • Power point: Finding My Fit – Client Handout with Group Activity (30-45 min)

4. Reflection and Closing (10 minutes)

  • Students take the Career Decision Profile
  • Discuss Reflection questions (2-3 minutes)

List of Advising Resources & Downloads

Videos

Advisor: Career Decision Platform (https://vimeo.com/493172969)

Advisor: Career Key Overview ( https://vimeo.com/393492821)

Students: Career Decision Profile (https://vimeo.com/480498917)
Students: Career Key Discovery (https://vimeo.com/392542053)
Students: CKD Profile Decision Tools (https://vimeo.com/409021237)

Client Materials

Client Surveys

  • Career Decision Profile web application
  • Career Key Discovery web application

Student Activities

Instructional Tools

CDP Facilitator’s Guide

Descriptions of CDP and CKD for website, communications

Nearpod Lesson (can be exported to Google Classroom), Preview or Editable

PowerPoints

C. Related Resources & Downloads

Interpreting Assessments and Advising Students

Sample CDP Report

CDP Scale by Scale Quick Reference Tool

Sample CKD Report

CK Discovery At a Glance Interpretation Tool

Career Key Clusters Map

Also see the online articles,

Screen for career readiness with CDP

How to interpret CK Discovery results and advise discoverers

Advising

NACE Career Competencies – Career Key Map and Blog

ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors Infographic
ASCA Career Key Map to Competencies

Funding & Advocacy

CK Funding Sources
CK Funding Sources – Federal

D. Research You Can Use

Scroll down in Career Key’s Shop to our most up to date list of free downloads. (No registration required to download). They include,

  • To Be Happier: a practical, science-based guide (interactive PDF)
  • Personality Major Match – What does the research say? (PDF)
  • Personality Major Match – Professionals’ Guide (PDF)
  • Professionals’ Guide to Career Well-being (PDF)

Also see in these Resources:
Career Key Manual