Contents of Your Report

In the following sections of your report you will find:

• An overview of four very different patterns of career experience. People differ greatly in how desirable they believe each career pattern to be.
• A description of your career concepts profile showing how you believe your career should be structured.
• A description of your career motivations profile, as the best indicator of the kind of career that would best suit you in terms of personal satisfaction and fulfillment.
• A brief comparison of your career concepts profile and your career motivations profile. Basically, this shows what your career would look like if you followed your head versus your heart in your career. You can use this comparison to avoid mistakes that might lead you in the wrong direction in your career.

Four Pattern of Career Experience

The CareerView model describes four fundamentally different patterns of career experience. Most careers can be described by a combination or more of these patterns. People differ markedly in their concepts about the desirability of each pattern. A career that you might believe to perfect for you might be seen as very undesirable by someone else. These four career patterns form the basis of our assessment of your career concepts and your career motivations.
Expert Specialization Key Motives: Expertise, Security	Spiral Lateral Movement; Broadening of Skills Key Motives: Personal Growth, Creativity	Linear Up the Ladder Key Motives: Influence and Achievement	Transitory Fast, many different jobs Key Motives: Variety and Independence

How to Use Your Report

First, look at your Career Concepts profile below to see how much you view each of the four patterns as descriptive of the sort of career you believe you should pursue. The key themes in your profile are identified and described.

Second, look at your Career Motivations profile below to see how your career motivations align with the four career patterns. This provides the best insight into the kind of career that actually would best suit you, motivationally. The key themes are identified and described.

Third, look at our analysis of the congruence between your career concepts and your career motives. For many people, there are differences between the career path they believe they should follow and their career motives. That is, a different career path would be more likely to satisfy their career motives. If such conflicts exist for you, they will show up here, and we will offer advice about how to re-orient your career to fit a path or pattern likely to bring you most satisfaction.

Your Personal Career Concepts Profile

Your career concepts scores indicate what you believe you should be doing with your career.
The height of each bar in the graph indicates how much you believe your career ideally should contain the career pattern described by that particular career concept (see descriptions above).

Your two highest career concepts scores are: Primary Concept: Linear rapid upward advancement, with emphasis on achievement and gaining influence Secondary Concept: Spiral periodic movement into new types of work, with emphasis on broadening of skills and knowledge, and creativity

Your career concepts analysis is:

Your two highest career concept scores are Linear and Spiral. This combination of career concepts emphasizes both upward and lateral movement. The ideal Linear-Spiral or Spiral-Linear career pattern would be one in which you periodically (every 5 -7 years) move into new types of work (e.g., fields different from, but related to, those you have worked in previously), but where each career move takes you to a position of increased authority and responsibility. The pattern would look like an upward moving spiral. Movement is a critical part of the Linear-Spiral career. Staying for long periods (i.e., more than 8 years) in any one field or position would be undesirable. For you to feel that your career is working out well, getting ahead (moving up) and broadening your experience are essential. For people pursuing careers in management, we refer to the Spiral-Linear pattern as the "management generalist" career. The central idea is that as this career unfolds, a person gradually develops broad knowledge and the capacity to work effectively as a leader, without being a technical expert, in most any kind of organizational or technical setting. Increasingly, organizations set up Spiral-Linear career tracks to develop breadth of knowledge, plus management and leadership skills in high potential managers.

Your Personal Career Motivations Profile

Your career motivation scores indicate the kind of career pattern that would best fit you motivationally. Note: This may differ from the career pattern that your career concepts scores (see above) indicate you believe you should be following.
The height of each bar in the graph indicates how much the career pattern described by that particular career concept would be present in your career to satisfy your personal career motives.

Your two highest career motivation scores are: Primary Motivation: Spiral periodic movement into new types of work, with emphasis on broadening of skills and knowledge, and creativity Secondary Motivation: Linear rapid upward advancement, with emphasis on achievement and gaining influence

Your career motives analysis is:

According to your assessment, your strongest career motives fall into the Spiral and Linear categories. The key themes for this combination of career motives are personal growth, creativity, power, and achievement. Bearing in mind that your career motives are most likely to reflect what you truly want as an individual, your best strategy would be to look for career moves that give you both the opportunity to become involved in creative or at least diverse kinds of work where you would acquire new knowledge and skills, and where you also have the opportunity to influence events and make things happen. Quite likely this means getting into the type of management track that would involve moving across organizational functions over time. We often refer to this type of career as the "management generalist" track, whereby one gradually develops the capacity to play a leadership and management role in most any kind of field or organizational setting. Organizations today, particularly those with large, diverse, international operations, increasingly set up Linear-Spiral type career tracks to develop new management and executive talent, based on the central idea that people with management experience in diverse operations will develop the broad, global understanding of business to operate effectively as senior managers and executives. In view of your Spiral and Linear motives, you should think twice before getting yourself into a highly specialized career track, say as a technical expert or as a functional manager in an established field. This type of career experience would very likely leave you with a feeling of stagnation and boredom. By the same reasoning, however, a career strictly as a low-level generalist without much power to influence events and circumstances would likely leave you feeling inconsequential and ineffectual. In short, you are likely to feel most rewarded and fulfilled in a career track that offers you the opportunity to play a leadership role in new or very dynamic fields or ventures.

Comparing Your Career Concepts Profile with Your Career Motivations Profile

This comparison highlights differences and similarities between the kind of career pattern that you appear to believe you should follow vs. the kind of career pattern that would best fit you personally in terms of career motivation and satisfaction.

Career Concepts		Career Motivations
Primary	Secondary	Primary	Secondary
Linear - rapid upward advancement, with emphasis on achievement and gaining influence	Spiral - periodic movement into new types of work, with emphasis on broadening of skills and knowledge, and creativity	Spiral - periodic movement into new types of work, with emphasis on broadening of skills and knowledge, and creativity	Linear - rapid upward advancement, with emphasis on achievement and gaining influence

Comparative Analysis

The key themes in your Career Beliefs profile, Spiral and Linear, are basically the same as the key themes in your Career Motivations profile, but with a slightly different emphasis.

This indicates that your head and your heart agree considerably about the kind of career experience that would suit you well. However, because we place much more importance on Career Motivations than on Career Beliefs, we recommend that you be careful not to give more weight to the Linear theme than to the Spiral theme when evaluating new employment opportunities.