If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.
– Alice In Wonderland
You might have come to this site to have some fun doing non-serious job search or career exploration. That is cool. Welcome, I hope you find information of interest.
If, however, you are here to seriously look into possibilities connected to what having Positive Impact and working for the Common Good means to you, being as focused as possible can be a timesaver while it also significantly heightens your success with identifying information that will allow you to explore and then move ahead successfully. What follows are some questions and exercises designed to provide clarification regarding Why You and Why Positive Impact and the Common Good? I encourage you to write down and save your answers to these questions in whatever way you normally gather and record information.
Of the hundreds of people who I have helped find jobs in employers they saw as contributing to the Common Good or do jobs they felt had a Positive Impact, there have been three primary reasons why those types of jobs or places of work have been of interest:
- The work contributes to your own physical and mental health (the books The Healing Power of Doing Good by Allan Luks and Peggy Payne, Anatomy of an Illness by Norman Cousins, and Minding the Body and Mending the Mind by Joan Borysenko were early books that outlined how helping others can improve one’s health).
- The work creates a personal feeling of worth because you are following a dream, contributing to a cause, fulfilling a life purpose.
- The work specifically helps other people and/or contributes to the betterment of society…the Common Good…and that feels good.
Is one of these your focus? If not, write down for yourself why the concepts of Positive Impact and Common good are of interest to you.
Focus is a key competency when it comes to finding the opportunity you would enjoy in general and in particular, in regard to working in the Common Good, which can often be weighted toward one’s values. This worksheet and the lists that follow are meant to help provide focus.
Instructions: Look through this list and write down the types of organizations that you feel work for the Common Good, then prioritize your list from 1 (most interest) to the highest number (least interest). Feel free to add categories that you feel are in the Common Good; I don’t claim to have created an exhaustive list.
Types of Organizations:
- Nonprofits/Community Organizations
- Human Services/Social Services/Social Enterprises/Advocacy
- Higher Education
- Education K–12
- Environmental/Green
- Arts & Culture & Writing
- Faith Based/Religion
- Healthcare
- Foundations/Philanthropies
- Associations
- Unions
- Government Agencies
- Public Safety
- Consulting/Vendors in support of organizations in the Common Good
- Public Broadcasting
- Others you believe serve the Common Good not included above)
Jobs by function:
- Education
- Administration/Leadership/Management/Supervision
- Fundraising
- Direct Social Services
- Writing and Editing
Jobs by area of focus:
- Youth
- Community Development
- Volunteering
- Poverty and Hunger
- Travel and Transportation
- Disaster Relief
- Animals
- LGBT
- Drug Abuse
- Technology
- Women
- Human Services
The Career Test at www.123test.com – This Dutch site will be mentioned several times as a key place to go to get assistance through the use of assessment tests regarding what would be the best Common Good focus for you in your job search and/or career exploration. On that site is the Career Test – The site describes it as follows. “What career best fits your personality? This free career test will give you insight into your career personality. Based on a characterization of your personality in terms of Holland Code personality types, you will learn what kind of work environments suit you best. Choose a career that matches your preferences and you will increase your chances of being successful! “
In my experience, John Holland’s well researched and extremely popular and helpful assessment of the kinds of work environments that suit you provides invaluable information on the following:
- Realistic: practical, physical, concrete, hands-on, machine, and tool-oriented
- Investigative: analytical, intellectual, scientific, explorative, thinker
- Artistic: creative, original, independent, chaotic, inventive, media, graphics, and text
- Social: cooperative, supporting, helping, healing/nurturing, teaching
- Enterprising: competitive environments, leadership, persuading, status
- Conventional: detail-oriented, organizing, clerical
Your assessment results also provide a list of occupations that fit the Holland code that was a result of your answers on fifteen questions. Note of Caution – I have worked with several individuals over the years who were disappointed that the careers that were listed did not fit what they had targeted. If your answers put you into that category I encourage you to reflect on your answers to those fifteen questions and see what you can learn from the results that might provide data on why the career that interests you was not listed.
What follows are links to organizations that might help you answer that question even more fully than the exercise above. As above, check those categories that interest you.Check out *** Idealist.org: Estela Kennen, a freelance writer, called Idealist.org “the mother of non-profit job sites”—and I would have to agree. They have been around for a long time and have provided an invaluable service to those interested in working for the Common Good. Idealist.org provides job listings from thousands of organizations, very well-written blogs and articles about employment in the nonprofit sector, and much more. I would strongly encourage you to spend time on this site as you further clarify “Why You and Why the Common Good?”
Check out the *** Chronicle of Philanthropy at http: philanthropy.com: Another resource that has helped many people explore options regarding working for the Common Good is the Chronicle of Philanthropy. It describes itself as “the No. 1 news source, in print and online, for nonprofit leaders, fundraisers, grant makers, and other people involved in the philanthropic enterprise. For more than 20 years, The Chronicle has been connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs and ideas.”
You might find it helpful spending time in much the same way that I’d suggested using idealist.org; that is, reading the articles and looking at how they organize job listings.
Check out *** My Perfect Resume www.myperfectresume.com (previously The Riley Guide www.rileyguide.com) mentioned earlier, as a foundational job-search site. You can identify the types of employers you might want to explore at their Career Research Center; you will find a link to it on their Home page. When you click on it, here is what they describe is offered: “Our career center is a starting point for exploring careers that commonly require education beyond high school for entry or moving ahead. Starting with the sortable overview tables below, you’ll find the most currently available data for over 400 careers and links to over 140 career profiles that detail educational requirements, the work, and where to research further.”
Of most interest to Common Good explorers are the listings of careers as well as descriptors for a number of areas that are traditionally considered linked to the Common Good:
- Counseling
- Education
- Forestry
- Allied Health
- Healthcare
- Nursing
- Social Service
- Safety
Spending time here may prove helpful in obtaining very specific up-to-date information on jobs and careers of interest.
Edgar Schein, a professor at MIT, has in my opinion done the most important research on career values. Disclaimer: When I supervised fifty career consultants at a consulting firm in the 1990s I had the honor of being able to have Dr. Schein come into our organization and train our consultants on his Career Anchors instrument. This is a particularly powerful assessment to take when you are exploring options about working for the Common Good.
It is available at www.123test.com What follows is this sites description of the Work Values Test they provide for free that is like the Career Anchors.
“When you are wondering What job should I do or What career is right for me you might be surprised to know that you already have all the answers inside yourself. You have career and work values, the characteristics of your work that you find most important. They are similar to those found in the theory of career anchors by Dr. Edgar Schein, one of the founders of the field of modern organizational psychology. He suggests that every one of us approaches our work with a certain set of priorities and values that he calls our career anchors.”
This work values test is easy to take and you receive an extensive free profile of your values that cover your need for:
- Autonomy
- Creativity
- Variety
- Self-Development
- Structure
- Security
- Influence
- Prestige
- Performance
- Financial Reward
- Work-Life Balance
- Working Conditions
- Work Relationships
- Altruism
Alright, you have given thought to what aspect of having a Positive Impact and working for the Common Good is of interest; you have identified types of jobs and employers that might be of interest; and you have checked out your values while giving thought to how they relate to your Positive Impact and Common Good career focus.I am now going to recommend you look at your overall personality profile through three well respected assessments of personality.
www.123test.com, You were previously introduced to this very professional Dutch site regarding their Career Test and Work Values Test. As I said previously, this is the single most comprehensive site I have found that provides well researched assessments to help individuals from all over the world identify the personality traits that are critical to understand as one looks into careers in general and particularly Positive Impact and Common Good careers. What follow is their description in quotes of three of these assessments followed by some of my commentary on the described assessment.
The DISC Personality Test – “Our free DISC personality test, based on the DISC types, determines your personality profile in just five minutes. Find out how the DISC factors, Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance predict your behavior towards others and the everyday things you do.
This DISC inventory is also used by many career counselors and small businesses to empower employees. It is an essential tool for exploring how you as a person fit or conflict in a team, with others and with specific work characteristics.”
The DISC is a very popular instrument used by many organizations of all sizes. The free profile gives you very specific information on the following:
Dominance – Describes the way you deal with problems, assert yourself and control situations.
Influence – Describes the way you deal with people, the way you communicate and relate to others.
Steadiness – Describes your temperament-patience, persistence, and thoughtfulness.
Compliance – Describes how you approach and organize your activity, procedures and responsibilities.
Big Five Personality Test – “Take our free personality test and find out more about who you are and your strengths. This is valuable information for choosing a career and how to develop yourself for personal growth. Five key personality dimensions are explored in depth in a complete textual and graphical report. In the results, you will find your core personality type(s) and how that interacts with your life, career and personal success. Learn what to pursue, what to avoid and how your behavior differs from that of others. This personality test measures the Big Five personality factors very reliably. The big five personality theory is by far the most scientifically validated and reliable psychological model to measure personality.”
The big five personality measures have been around for a long time and are, as stated, a scientifically validated and reliable psychological model.
Jung Personality Test – “Want to know how you deal with people, process information and make decisions? Are you an Extravert or Introvert psychological type? Take this free Jung personality test and find out what psychological type you are according to Jung types.
The Jung personality test answers the following questions:
- What kind of personality do I have?
- What are my Jung types?
- How will my psychological type fit certain kinds of jobs?
The Jung personality test measures your preferences for dealing with and relating to people, processing information, making decisions and organizing your life. Its results give you a good overview of your personality and behavior. You can then see how your Jung types match up with a potential employer’s requirements.
The Jung typology is the result of the work of Carl Gustav Jung, an eminent Swiss psychiatrist who originated Jungian Psychology. This is one of the world’s most established and well respected models on personality and behavior. Tests using the Jung typology model are widely used by organizations for assessment centers, team building, coaching and personal development.”
The results you receive regarding your preferences on the Jung Personality Test are also the preference results received when one takes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Both assessments are based on the work of Carl Jung and measure your level of preference for the following:
Introversion-Extraversion
Sensing-Intuition
Feeling-Thinking
Judgment-Perception
In Summary, the DISC Personality test, Big Five Personality Test and the Jung Personality Test are well worth taking if you need additional information regarding how your personality will fit into working on your own or in an organization focused on the Common Good. When these three personality tests are combined with your answers on the Holland Career Test and the Work Values Test mentioned previously you will have extremely valuable and well researched information regarding how you will be most fulfilled and productive working for the Common Good. Again, all of them are provided at www.123test.com.