Before a customer can enter training, the customer must complete a career assessment called the Interest Profiler and Career Research. One of the customers I was working with was having great difficulty choosing what she would like to do with her training benefit. She was unsure of what she would like to do and said she had a general interest in everything, but she could not narrow it down to one. I asked her what she likes to do during her spare time that she enjoyed doing. She said she enjoyed cooking and working on cars. I was able to see she was more interested in hands-on work and followed up with the question, do you like to do hands-on work? She responded, “Yes, I love cooking and working on cars.” Her expressions changed there was much more enthusiasm and excitement in her voice. However, she was still unsure of what she would like to do. As an advisor, I wanted to give her the flexibility of being able look at a few different options without pressuring her to choose right away since it often can take time for individuals to truly decide what they are interested in. However, my job requires me to move forward with the next step with her within a specific time frame. We looked over a few different career options in automotive work, culinary arts, and carpentry. I gave her print outs and recommended that she look over the occupational information and school information for each one. I told her to take the time in the upcoming week to think about what she would like to do.
My motivation to assist her was the time frame, so that we can get her enrolled into training within a specific time frame, and so I decided to have a longer one-on-one session with her so she can receive the proper guidance. It benefited me because I was able to have her complete most of the crucial steps required for the assessment that day. I played the role of a career guide which helped her narrow down some of the training options that were most realistic for her to achieve considering her academic skill level and level of education. Looking back, I think it would have been better if I gave her a specific date to complete the task by. However, I did not want to do this because she was not my customer. She was assigned to another advisor and I did not want to overstep my duties by providing her a timeline since she would be able to truly develop a better time frame with her assigned advisor. I do think it would have helped if I would have managed my time better with her because sometimes when I get comfortable, the conversation can sometimes lead to other topics and I can lose focus for a bit during the session. She was my last customer so I felt less pressured with time, however, I think it still would have been good to manage my time.
There was no disagreement in this situation. She was pretty open to all the hands-on fields mentioned. I don’t really consider that to be the best attitude, but I understood that this is most likely because she hasn’t really looked into anything and it’s her first time mentally preparing for something like this. I told her that she should truly pursue the one that she can truly feel motivated to put her time and effort in.
I did not really learn anything new in this session with the customer, however, it did validate again the true struggles of a person getting out of a plant life and trying to think about what type of training they are going to do. Also, it did point out to me another issue of the fact that there are not any vocational schools for individuals who want to work on cars within Southeast Michigan.