Dr. Brian A. Schwartz believes that, irrespective of country or culture, career development professionals have a major task before them in helping the youth of their countries negotiate the transition from learning power to earning power in a way that maximises the use of each person’s natural talents, interests, skills and abilities. He believes that technology provides a golden opportunity to harness the knowledge of how to align people’s passions and talents with the needs of the workplace so that both individuals and institutions can strike the best arrangement in the struggle between the individual and culture.

For the past 10 years, with the early advent of the Internet and the development of CD-Rom technology, Dr. Schwartz has been working on a vision of bringing an integrated career development process to large numbers of people. At his company, CareerDNA, LLC, he begins with the premise that each of us has a unique “fingerprint” or template that describes the work and work environments that would be ideal for each of us; thus the concept of “Career DNA.” He also believes that those people who love their work are doing what excited them as children but in an adult work metaphor. His psychohistorical approach is based on the 1700 individual clients he has worked with since 1976, as well as over 5000 additionaI individuals he has worked with and assessed in corporate and educational settings since 1965.

The career model developed consists of five essential building blocks i.e work type and temperament, work personality, occupational interests, work-related values and most centrally, SkillsDNA, the configuration of the user’s energised skills into a map of the work functions and roles that would be most enjoyable and satisfying. Building on the powerful work of Bernard Haldane, John Crystal and Richard Bolles, and taking their insights and procedures several steps further, users organically grow a graphic picture of what ideal work should look like to them. Combining SkillsDNA with interests, type and temperament, values and personality, the user is then able, using a 2000+ career and job taxonomy of the American world of work, map which occupations they would best be suited for or are the most appropriate for them to explore. Schwartz`s College Optimizer product canassist in course selection and he is currently developing a version which will assist in college selection. For adults in transition, there is the CareerFinder and for those facing some variation of “retirement”, the RetirementDNA product is designed to make that phase of life  richer and more fulfilling.

An interactive and “smart” Mentor will provide users with instant feedback and the delivery of scenarios and game-like exploratory modules will deliver an experience that will differ depending on the responses of the user. The plan is to ultimately build an end-to-end suite of career management services customised to the learning and problem-solving style of the user. The interface will change as the type and temperament of the user is determined. Scenarios, simulations and questions will be served up in a “chess game” with the user, until their type and temperament are determined. Schwartz says that his approach will not require the 120+ or 70 questions currently used by the currently most popular instruments, and checks along the way will lead to “checkmate” in determining the type and temperament of the user.

Further information about the  CareerDNA product, and related articles, can be found at: http://www.careerdna.net/index.htm

The CareerDNA user experience can be previewed at: http://www.careerdna.net/fullhelix.htm

Next generation tools and processes for career and life planning

Info - Next Generation Tools-IAEVG (Brian Schwartz).doc - 28.50 Kb

This paper summarises the "CareerDNA" concept and the associated career development interactive tool.