Screen for Career Decision Readiness

Career Decision Readiness

Everyone wants and needs to provide cost-effective, appropriate levels of service – to avoid over-serving or underserving clients. The CDP helps you evaluate a person’s readiness to make career decisions. Then, you can decide what level of service is best and what services to provide.

You can understand a person’s readiness to make a career decision from two points of view, those factors internal to the person, and those outside, or external.

Internal to the Individual

• Self-Clarity — The need for help in understanding their interests, abilities, and personality… and to relate them to career options,
• Need for more information — Knowledge about occupations, training programs, majors, or other career options,
• Difficulty in making decisions: may need help in learning how to make a good decision or there may be deeper issues requiring professional help,
• Importance of making a career decision; how motivated the person is,
• Self-efficacy beliefs — convictions about their ability to make a decision, to choose a particular career option, or to be able to do it, and
• Mental health issues.

External Factors

• Family and friends
• Multiple responsibilities
• Inadequate work/life balance
• Significant others’ needs with a higher priority
• Significant others’ negative influences

Societal

• Lack of support, such as, quality career guidance services
• Discrimination and stereotyping
• Economy
• Lack of personal financial resources

 A “Just Right” Differentiated Service Level Model

Everyone wants and needs to provide cost-effective, appropriate levels of service – to avoid over-serving or underserving clients. The CDP helps you evaluate a person’s readiness to make career decisions. Then, the most relevant support for your student can be guided by scores on their career decision needs. However, at any time, you can escalate support for your students based on your interpretation of their results.

You can understand a person’s readiness to make a career decision in 2 dimensions:

Capability for decision-making (internal)
Capacity for persisting (external)

In general, the higher a person’s capability for decision-making and higher their capacity for persisting, the more ready they are to make career decisions. Likewise, low capability and low capacity causes decision making to be more difficult.

We categorize career readiness using 4 service levels.

They are based on a differentiated service delivery model developed by well-known and respected career services counselors and researchers at Florida State University. (see CDP Manual for more details and references) The 4 levels align with a person’s readiness:

Self-help services – high readiness
Auto-generated referral services – moderate readiness
Staff referral services – moderate readiness
Intrusive referral services – low readiness

Career Key helps advisors assign these service levels by estimating a level for each client based on their CDP scores.

When you organize tasks and support around these service levels, you increase efficiency and effectiveness. You meet clients where they are – their readiness for decision making.

Next Step:

About Career Decision Profile > Evaluating Your Program

Related:

About Career Decision Profile > CDP Manual

CDP Manual > Additional Resources

Support > Manage CDP Clients