Description of the history and purpose of the SDS Summary of your SDS results Insights learned from completion of the assessment How you can use this assessment with clients

1. Self-Directed Search Assessment Paper
Department of Counseling, Chadron State College
Melissa McConnell
COUN 534 Fundamentals of Assessment
Dr. Grant Sasse
Summer, 2022
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2. Description of the history and purpose of the Self Directed Search
John Holland is an American psychologist most known for his contribution to Career
Counseling. Holland’s work began in the 1950s as he developed theories regarding personality
and vocational interests. John Holland began to develop personality inventories as a way for
people to identify potential career interests. Holland worked for decades developing useful
inventories and career classifications to help people match their personalities with suitable
occupations. Margaret Nauta celebrated the impact of John Holland’s work in her article from
2010, where she celebrated the effect his work has had on the last fifty years. Nauta explains that
“Helping people make career decisions have been fundamental to counseling psychology since
its emergence as a profession,” and Holland’s theories and assessments have made that happen
(2010).
The Self-Directed Search was developed to help match personality and interests to
suitable occupations. The assessment was designed to be administered, scored, and interpreted
by the individual. Holland’s theory is that people enjoy careers where they work with similar
interests. He spent decades developing systems to code careers and then create a way to assess
what careers would be the best match based on an individual’s interest. Personality types are
divided into six categories artistic, realistic, investigative, social, enterprising, and conventional.
These six categories for the Holland code are three-letter indicators called the summary code.
This indicator can then be matched to different occupations with the same code. Self-Directed
search continues to be a relevant way for people to look at potential careers (Loftus 2008).
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3. Summary of SDS Results
My summary code is SEC or Social, Enterprising, Conventional. Social was my highest
score at 54, Enterprising next at 31, and Conventional was in the last place with 23. I also scored
23 for Realistic, a 21 for Investigative, and 11 for Artistic. I think it could be noted that my code
could have also been SER with a score of 23 for both Conventional and Realistic. I can see that
based on the careers I indicated interest and experience in Academic Adviser (SEC), Casework
Supervisor (SEC), Community Program Aid (SEC), and Teacher (SEC). My previous
occupations indicate that my interest and experience lean more towards conventional than
realistic.
After explaining my summary code, I have a list of occupations that include all the
combinations of Social, Enterprising, Conventional, and Realistic. The list was quite long and
included many careers that I have no interest in and most of the careers I have held in the past.
The first item listed was Academic Adviser. This has always been a career aspiration for me, so I
found it fitting to be the first item on the list (the list is not ranked). After reviewing the list, I
could remove the Realistic from my category as there were no careers with the R that interested
me in any form. I imagine that my upbringing on a cattle ranch and my experience with many
manual tasks may have elevated my score in this area. Careers, however, in this area are of no
interest to me. My list would have been more manageable and probably appeared more helpful at
first glance if the R codes had not been included in my results.
The score report then gave me my aspiration code. This was the code for the careers I
wanted to have. Counselors, Mental Health counselors, and Secondary teachers all have the code
of SEA or Social, Enterprising and Artistic. Artistic was my lowest area, significantly lower than
any of my other areas. Interestingly, most of the other occupations with the coding of SEA were
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4. occupations that I do not find even remotely interesting. The addition of the Artistic and the
elimination of the Realistic changed the professions slightly. Substance abuse counselor and
career are both SEA codes, while Academic Adviser and Credit Counselor are both SEC codes.
An article written on effective techniques when utilizing the SDS noted that people who have
high congruence with their aspiration codes and their summary codes have a higher level of job
satisfaction (Bullock 2005).
Insights Explain in detail personal insights gained from completing the SDS.
I completed the Self Directed Search on June 2nd, 2022, as part of the last class I took in
my graduate program for school counseling. The assessment was simple to understand and easy
to complete, and I could follow the instructions and complete the assessment without any
complications. I did consider that I may not be the typical person targeted for this assessment. I
have a college education, and I am taking the final class for a master’s degree. I was employed
eight years at a job where I administered functional assessments. I was employed for four years
as a College and Career Adviser, where I assisted students in making career decisions. If the
assessment had been a challenge for me, it would be easy to argue that it was not an appropriate
assessment for the average person trying to figure out a career.
I am completing my graduate program in school counseling, but I have been employed as
a school counselor for the past two years. I love my job and am optimistic about retiring as a
school counselor. Taking an assessment to help me determine a career was not something I felt
the need to do, and I was not as enthusiastic as I may have been if I had taken this assessment
five years ago. When I took the assessment, I remember thinking how I wished I had spent the
money to take this assessment six years ago when a new company was taking over my job, and I
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5. was looking for a career change. Instead, I was taking the assessment after I had discovered and
embarked on a new career that I found to be satisfying for me.
The most obvious thing I noticed from the assessment results was the career that I am
currently embarking on; the career that I am going to graduate school for includes the Artistic
area, which is the lowest indicator of my personality. This result does not concern me. My
experience with assessments shows that clinical judgment can play into this self-assessment. I
understand that there are many artistic aspects of counseling. Many counselors choose to utilize
music and art techniques within the counseling process. Other elements of counseling, such as
mindfulness and other popular relaxation techniques, may contain artistic elements. A person
with Artistic interests and personality traits may find many aspects of counseling comforting and
exciting. I, however, believe that counselors have many different theories and different clients
have different needs in their counselors. I am not an Artistic personality, and I would be less
comfortable with a counselor who utilizes art in their counseling sessions. My pragmatic
approach to life and counseling may be helpful to others who seek counseling but have similar
outlooks on life. I consider that people with artistic interests are often drawn into counseling, but
that does not exclude me from being a school counselor. It also may explain why I usually do not
enjoy spending time with other counselors and have sought out the opportunity to work in a
setting where I am the only counselor. I have previously worked in an office with three other
counselors. When thinking about it, there is a high probability that my lack of an artistic element
in my personality made it difficult for me to enjoy my interaction with them.
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6. Reflection for Utilizing Self-Directed Search
In my current role as an elementary school counselor, I do not see myself utilizing the
self-directed search with my students. I think it would be appropriate to start introducing
Holland’s code to them in terms of understanding the different personalities that may do well in
specific careers. Aside from my current role as an elementary school counselor, I can see the
usefulness of utilizing the self-directed search when working with high school students and
adults looking to explore career options.
I currently have a child who recently graduated from high school and has experienced a
lot of angst in regards to what to do in regards to planning for her future. She has interests but
struggles to understand how those interests may be utilized in careers. She is currently in
counseling and taking a Career and Lifestyle Planning class in college. She expresses anxiety
about figuring out what she wants to do with her life and feels overwhelmed with how to go
about it. I would utilize the Self Directed Search with a client like my daughter to help her see
how her interests are similar to other people in different careers. I feel like working with a client
like my daughter. She is facing a life change like graduating from high school and is exhibiting
symptoms associated with anxiety and depression due to not having an idea of a career path;
utilizing a resource like the Self Directed Search would be ideal.
The assessment is designed to be self-directed, but if I had a client complete it, I would
want to discuss the results with them. I think it is essential to have conversations about things
like what surprised them and what did not surprise them. I would also want to talk about the
limitations of the assessment, mainly when working with younger clients who may have less
work and life experience. It can be challenging to measure interest if one has never had the
opportunity to explore a topic.
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7. Assessments such as the Self Directed Search are tools, and tools are only as useful as we
make them. We can learn to use the tools well in combination with our clinical judgment and
skill to enhance the clients’ counseling experience. If we utilize the tools without practice and
without the addition of our clinical judgment, we are replacing counseling with assessments that
may not be helpful and could be detrimental to our clients.
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8. References
Bullock, E., & Reardon, R. (2005). Using Profile Elevation to Increase the Usefulness of the
Self-Directed Search and Other Inventories. The Career Development Quarterly, 54(2),
175-183. doi: 10.1002/j.2161-0045.2005.tb00149.x
Loftus, C., Cowger, M., Young, E., Miller, T., Sheets, T., & Tobacyk, J. (2008). Assessing
Holland types on the internet: A comparative study. College Student Journal, 42(2),
270-275.
Nauta, M. (2010). The development, evolution, and status of Holland’s theory of vocational
personalities: Reflections and future directions for counseling psychology. Journal Of
Counseling Psychology, 57(1), 11-22. doi: 10.1037/a0018213
Spokane AR, Holland JL. The Self-Directed Search: A Family of Self-Guided Career
Interventions. Journal of Career Assessment. 1995;3(4):373-390.
doi:10.1177/106907279500300409
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