Case Study Carrie Hachadurian

Client: Daniel Current situation: recent college alum; part-time police officer Reason for counseling: Wondering if police work is a good fit; wanting to explore other possible careers Career counselor in training: Carrie Hachadurian First off, thank you for your willingness to be involved in this case study. I appreciate the time you have taken out of your schedule to meet with me. The following is a summary of the Career Construction Interview questions, as well as assessments you took from Focus 2, a free online program to all Western Carolina University students and alumni. Then, you will find the list of recommendations moving forward. Please see your full Focus 2 assessment results, posted after the Plan of Action section: Career Construction Interview Purpose: To identify life themes important to you as a way to guide your career exploration. Summary: In our one-on-one time, you answered several questions. The first one asked you to identify your heroes or role models as you were growing up. This question represents your self-concept. You stated sports heroes were people you looked up to when you were a child, especially those who overcame great obstacles. You looked up to them because they were goal-oriented and overcame what others had told them was impossible but persisted to achieve their dreams. You said you were like them in a way because you were the first on your father’s side to go to college and that you persisted through college, even though school has always been difficult for you. You said you differ from them because you are not a big risk-taker. You like to play it safe when it comes to making big decisions for yourself. The second question asked you to think about your favorite saying or motto. This question represents advice you have for yourself. Your favorite motto is, “Do something good daily.” In explaining your motto, you expressed themes of responsibility, loyalty, and trustworthiness as well as your desire to help others in some capacity. The third question asked you to identify three of your favorite books, movies, or TV shows. This question describes your preferred settings and strategies you use for solving or approaching challenges. You chose Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, and Children of Men. You liked Saving Private Ryan because it was the most realistic war movie you had ever seen. You mentioned there was a time in your life when you were interested in joining the military and you see themes of loyalty, accountability, and responsibility in those who serve in this capacity. You enjoy Jurassic Park because it reminds you of your childhood but also because you like to watch this movie to escape reality. And you enjoy Children of Men because you believe a dystopian-type of world is possible but also scary. The movie borders on fiction and what could become reality. It is interesting that you prefer to be in a realistic environment, but that you use fiction to escape life’s challenges temporarily. The fourth question asked you to describe your earliest memory. This question analyzes your core problems or pre-occupations. You said your earliest memory was when your family moved to North Carolina to a house your family could not afford at the time. You mentioned you were only in this house for a few short months. The moving boxes were not yet unpacked, and you and your brother spent time together building a fort out of pillows and bedsheets. You discussed your current strained relationship with your brother and how this memory reminds you of the good times you spent together when you were younger and things were easier. This might suggest you prefer to rely on the positive experiences to get you through life’s challenges.

Work Interest Assessment Purpose: The Work Interest Assessment assists clients in exploring careers that fit their interests and the work environment that may fit with them. Summary: Your Holland code is RCE. Your highest score of 29, Realistic (R), means that you prefer to work with your hands or with objects as opposed to working with people or ideas. You prefer solving concrete problems as opposed to abstract issues. People in this category generally enjoy being physically active, repairing equipment, rebuilding cars, fixing electrical things, solving mechanical problems, playing sports, working outdoors, and using their hands. Your next two highest scores were tied at 15 were Conventional (C) and Enterprising (E). Those who score high in Conventional are the “organizers” and usually like to organize data and prefer orderly work. People in this category often like to see things run efficiently and are more likely to pay attention to detail. Those who score high in Enterprising are the “persuaders” and enjoy influencing others and are most often in some type of leadership position. Having some sort of power status is important to those in the Enterprising category and usually are very good at giving speeches and leading groups and are in general fairly self-confident. Since you scored 15 in both, your C and E scores are interchangeable. Values Assessment Purpose: The values assessment helps clients discover what is most important to them in terms of work values Summary: Income was your number one priority. You want to be sure you earn enough income to support a certain lifestyle you expect to have and to be financially independent. Your next two Prestige and Stability. Prestige means you need to be in a work environment where others respect you. This goes hand-in-hand with your Enterprising score in the work interest assessment. And finally, you want stability in your career with routine tasks without too many surprises or risks along the way. Personality Assessment Purpose: The personality assessment helps clients discover career options that match their personalities. Summary: You prefer to work on projects where goals and procedures are clearly defined. This reinforces your stability score on the values assessment. You approach your tasks with a sense of responsibility in getting the job done in a very efficient way. You might enjoy to work on projects that allow you to organize tasks and deal with facts in an efficient way and you place a great amount of emphasis on accuracy of facts. You make decisions in a logical way and steadily work to complete a project. Skills Assessment Purpose: The skills assessment helps clients discover the skills in which they naturally excel Summary: Your top three skills are helping people, listening and reasoning. With your helping people skill, you prefer a career that would connect you with communities in a meaningful way. With your listening skill, you take the time to listen and understand what others are saying before you act or react to a situation. And with your reasoning skill, you have the ability to problem solve issues in an objective and logical way. You most often take the pros and cons of a solution before acting or committing to a decision.

Plan of Action Based off of your assessments and our time together, the following are my recommendations moving forward: •

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Personal reflection – spend some time to think through why you do not feel happy in your current position. Do you think the work environment you are currently in is affecting your career decision making? Considering you have prestige as one of your values and you have enterprising as part of your Holland code, do you think having the status of part time police officer is affecting how you feel about your job? What aspects of your current job do you really like? What aspects of your current job do you really dislike? O*Net Online – Spend some time on O*Net (www.onetonline.org) to research related fields. Be sure to read the brief summaries of each career, skills needed, work interest code (yours is RCE/ REC), job zone (level of education required), and salary information. Start with police officer and branch out from there. You had mentioned the need to find something that did not require an additional college degree, however, you also mentioned you would be interested in working with computers, which may require some additional training or certification. Research other fields as well – you can use the occupations listed in Focus 2 as a starting point if you wish. Or, you can search by interests in O*Net and input your code (REC). Research what other careers entail and what level of education is needed. Many careers require a college degree, but the subject matter may be lenient. Should you decide to switch careers altogether and earn a second degree, you should schedule an appointment with a transfer specialist to see what classes from your original bachelor degree would transfer before committing to another degree program. You should also research any other training possibilities including specialized certifications or training programs. Job shadowing/ information interviews – Before you completely call it quits on being a police officer, call around to other police departments to see if you can shadow a full-time officer or ask to interview other police officers about their jobs to gauge if their work is much different than the work you are currently doing. This will also help you reflect on if your work environment is causing you to rethink your career decisions. Or, if you are seriously considering a different career field altogether, call a local related business and ask to job shadow or conduct an information interview to get a feel for what a typical day in the life of X looks like. Plan for the future – If police work still does not resonate well with you, but you have done other research on O*Net, start drafting a plan. Will sticking with your police officer role for another year or two help you reach your next career goal? Or do you wish to seek a career completely outside of Criminal Justice? If so, what can you start doing today to help you reach that goal? Know that most people make career changes throughout their lives. What seems to fit well with you now may not resonate well with you later in life. It is normal to keep looking for other career options throughout one’s life, so take heart – you are not alone!

Focus 2 Portfolio

About Daniel Daniel is a 22-year-old white male who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice in 2016. In the year since graduating, Daniel has completed the Basic Law Enforcement Training (BLET) and has gotten married. His wife is currently in the Higher Education Student Affairs program and is scheduled to graduate next May. He applied for both a part-time and a full-time position at a nearby police department but was only offered the part-time position, which he said is more like a temporary position with very little to no steady hours of work. He is disappointed with his current position and is not sure if being a police officer is the right career for him. When asked if he has shadowed any other full-time officers to see if the duties would be different, he said he has shadowed other officers in his department but has not reached out to departments in other counties. Additionally, he also expressed some tension with his wife who feels he should stick with the police officer position while she is in school to obtain her master’s degree. He also discussed feeling guilty for wanting to move on from being a police officer since he recently finished his BLET, which costs money to complete. He is unsure if he should continue to be a police officer, move away from being a police officer but still stay with the Criminal Justice field, or move completely away from Criminal Justice altogether. He mentioned if he decided not to be a police officer, his BLET certification expires within a year of his departure. Should he decide later to become a police officer again, he would have to redo the BLET certification program, which he has said he does not want to do. He also expressed a desire to avoid getting another college degree, at least for the time being until his wife graduates and they can work together to pay off student debt. About the Experience I found working with Daniel and this assignment to be reaffirming in my future career plans to become a career counselor. The assignment was challenging but also fulfilling in helping Daniel

understand himself better and to help him craft a plan of action he can do to explore some of his career options. I met with Daniel twice; the first meeting was a conversation to get to know Daniel and his situation. In addition to the Career Construction Interview questions, I asked him questions about his socio economic situation growing up, what his parents did for a living, and what his expectations were a little down the road. Then, I showed him Focus 2 online and gave him an assignment to complete the four assessments. The second session focused around the results from his assessments, as well as a lengthy conversation about his answers to the Career Construction Interview and what that says about him and where his values lied. Daniel mentioned he was a Boy Scout as well as a student athlete, and so themes of personal responsibility, accountability, and goal setting for personal growth were highlighted during the initial Career Construction Interview. He grew up in an upper middle class, one-income family and is accustomed to a financially comfortable standard of living and expects to have that same level of financial security moving forward with his wife and, at some point, his children. When we examined his Holland score, as well as his other assessments, I made a comment that his assessments all suggested careers in criminal justice and asked why he thought that was so and why he is unhappy in his current position. He understands his current situation with his department is not an ideal work environment and that it is tainting his view of a career in law enforcement; however, he also said he understands the differences between his current position and a fulltime position in law enforcement and he is still unmotivated to move forward on his current career projection. He made connections with why the assessments would point him in that direction and agreed with the assessments in terms of the type of work environment in which he would excel; by the second interview, however, he had more or less made up his mind that he would make a career change within the next year.

When I asked him if he explored some of the career options Focus 2 suggested, he said he briefly looked at the list but nothing really stood out to him except for positions working with computers. We used O*Net to explore a few careers in computer science and computer information systems, and the information presented on the database seemed to resonate well with him. A career in this field would also give him the income, sense of prestige, and job security he seeks through his values assessment; he would be using his active listening, helping, and reasoning skills through his skills assessment; and he would still be working in a goal-oriented career field where he would have clear-cut objectives and expectations to fulfill. Although he originally stated he did not want to go back to school for another degree, he understands he may need an additional training to move towards a career in computers. We discussed options including an associate’s degree, another four-year degree, an online degree, or certifications in specific software and hardware systems. I highlighted the fact that since he already has a bachelor’s degree, mostly likely his liberal arts classes would transfer and he could probably obtain another bachelor’s degree in two years. I suggested he make an appointment with an academic advisor to see what his options were and which credits would transfer. We also discussed the flexibility an online degree would give him, given that his wife will graduate in May with her master’s degree and will be looking for positions upon graduation. I cautioned him, though, to research the online degrees before committing to one to make sure the degree was from an accredited institution. Since Daniel is very goal-oriented, I explained the importance of setting goals and a plan for himself while he continued to search for fulltime work and other career options. We discussed several strategies for career explorations, including job shadowing and informational interviews, and drafting a plan of action of things he can tangibly do immediately, namely researching careers on O*Net and researching possible schools if he decided to obtain another degree. In addition to that, though, he also

discussed the need to find a job right away as he was not getting any hours as a police officer at the moment and needed something to help with his income. I suggested a few technology firms within a 30mile radius from his current location and suggested he search for jobs that he would be qualified for even without a degree in computer science. Working with any of those firms would give him a first-hand account of what the industry is like, even if he was not directly working with computers. I also suggested searching for IT help desk-type jobs in higher education as many simply require any bachelor’s degree and would provide in-house training. He was very excited to learn about that suggestion as it would allow him to “try on” a career without having to go back to school. I also suggested he keep himself on the police department’s payroll for now in case he changes his mind; that way, he can explore a possible career move without losing his BLET certification and occasionally make extra money as security jobs were made available. Daniel has many options and ideas for moving forward. At the conclusion of our visit, he said he felt like he had a starting point and no longer felt like he was drifting through the abyss of post-college transition. He appreciated the service and the action plan I crafted for him, and he said he enjoyed taking the online assessments to better understand himself and the values, interests and skills he has and how that connects with his “fit” into the professional world. This was a successful assignment, both for myself and for Daniel. I felt as though I had a direct impact on someone’s life and could see a big difference in Daniel’s body language and tone of voice from the first session to the end of the second. I felt reaffirmed in my interest in the career counseling world; my one hesitation is that because I am also goal-driven and I prefer to have tangible items to put on a checklist, I was tempted to say, “You should do this, this, and this, and voila! Your life is set.” Of course, I know career counseling does not work that way. Daniel was an ideal first client as he was a bit more mature and ready for career exploration. Taking a backseat approach and letting the clients find

their ‘aha moments’ could be challenging for me, especially if they do not initially respond well to the assessments or conversations. Overall, though, I felt invigorated and look forward to additional training in this field.