Almost everyone likes to dress well, especially when the occasion requires “dressing up”, so that we look a bit more glamorous than our usual day to day attire. Whenever we get dressed to go to a wedding, to the supermarket, to work or to the gym, we want to be sure that we are wearing the right outfit from our closet. With various options in our wardrobe, great care is often taken to ensure that what we choose to wear fits us well.
A closet is very similar to our skill sets and personality traits when it comes to finding the right career outfits that are best fit for us. Within the global services sector, there are over 160 career pathways in business process outsourcing (BPO), information technology outsourcing (ITO), digital media and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). There are tools and approaches that can help you to select the best fit pathways from your closet of skills, preferences, talents, and knowledge. Among those tools are the RIASEC self-assessment test which can be accessed at www.mygsscareerpathway.gov.jm.
Discover your professional dimensions with the RIASEC Assessment Tool
Our clothing size is determined by our height, weight, waist circumference, and other critical specifications. Knowing our clothing size allows us to choose clothing off the rack with ease and may even give us liberty to wear more than one size. For example, someone may wear a medium shirt or blouse, but a large pants, or someone may be able to alternate between wearing size 8 and size 10 clothing.
Assessment tools such as John Holland’s RIASEC personality theory are useful in measuring aptitudes and interests to reveal what career possibilities in the global services sector and other industries would best fit us. RIASEC stands for:
- R – Realistic
- I – Investigative
- A – Artistic
- S – Social
- E -Enterprising
- C – Conventional
The RIASEC test is not complex but asks simple questions about what you like to do and what you tend to do. For example, whether you like to work on cars or tend to pay attention to details. When assessed, each individual will have a score for the six traits. However, the traits with the strongest scores give an idea of what types of jobs in the wardrobe of work one could wear everyday.
For example, someone who scores highly in the Investigative trait may find working in Business Intelligence or Data Analytics as the right career path in the knowledge process outsourcing segment, while someone who scores highly in the Social trait may be a good fit for working in Customer Service Management in the business process outsourcing segment.
Some persons may score high in multiple traits. This is an indication that they have the opportunity to switch between various jobs during their professional life cycle, similar to switching between various clothing sizes.
Knowing what you are good at and what jobs you are likely to succeed at, will help you to focus on and target the right jobs in the global services sector.
Choosing your best career outfit pathways in the GSS
Life does not unfold in a linear manner and neither does the career journey of most people. You may start out working in knowledge process outsourcing as a specialist in human resources and within a few years, transition to working in digital media because your aptitudes and additional training empower you to choose additional career paths.
The global services sector presents a myriad of career options that provide rewarding professions in Knowledge Process Outsourcing, Information Technology Outsourcing, Business Process Outsourcing and Digital Media. With so many options, choosing a career path may seem like a daunting task. However, with the GSS Project’s Career Advisory portal and various skills assessment tools available on the GSS Career Pathway Framework (www.mygsscareerpathway.gov.jm), choosing a career path in the global services sector is one that is enlightening and stress-free.
Along with these resources, it is always good to ask yourself questions about what kind of future you want in general and as a global services sector professional, to give yourself a better picture of your vision.
Here are six questions that you could ask yourself when trying to make career decisions:
1. What are my interests? These include the activities that you like to do in your free time such as your hobbies. Choosing career paths that may facilitate your interests and/or not prevent you from participating in those interests would be a good place to start.
2. What are my values? These are the things that are most important to you. For example, justice and fairness, work- life balance or family life. Your values may affect your preferred working hours. For example, if work-life balance is important to you, you may not want to choose a job that would negatively alter that desired balance.
3. What are my talents and strengths? These are the things that you do well and may have a unique ability in executing/expressing. Looking for jobs that require your strengths would likely make employment fulfilling.
4. What are my skills? These include hard skills of a technical nature as well as soft skills that allow one to successfully manage interpersonal relationships. If problem solving is one of your soft skills, a job that calls on that skill set would be a good fit.
5. What kind of educational training will I need? Assessing your knowledge and training capacity will allow you to see potential gaps between your desired profession and your current professional aptitude. Once the gap is identified, the search for the right training can begin.
6. What kind of salary would I like to earn? Having a target in mind helps with identifying what jobs will allow you to either earn that desired salary level or put you on a career path that will lead you to the ideal salary level. Though money should not be the sole motivation for a career, the right salary package that facilitates you meeting your responsibilities and goals helps to make life easier.
Assessments, research and training are necessary and useful for discovering career choices in the global services sector, but more importantly, they help to give you confidence to try on different career paths that can be rewarding in making your resume look good and allowing you to live a more fulfilled life.