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EXPLORING YOUR CAREER

PREFERENCES

To continue to gather information about what job characteristics might be
a match for you, consider the following activities, noting your findings and
reactions.

• If you haven’t done so already, take the MBTI test in What Type Am
I and determine your personality profile. Talk to your colleagues who
seem to enjoy their jobs and ask them about their MBTI profiles to get
a sense of how profiles match various types of nursing and healthcare
work.
• Think through all the jobs you’ve had so far (or the American Sentinel
courses you’ve taken) and assess them against the filters we’ve
identified. What can you learn from your job or student history? One of
the challenges here is to distinguish among all the aspects of a given
job that contributed to it being a good or bad experience for you.

• Make a list of what you consider to be your innate strengths and
weaknesses, and then solicit feedback from your friends, family,
or colleagues to see if they agree with your assessment. Test your
assumptions. Interview nursing professionals who are successful
and happy in their jobs, with a focus on what they especially like in
their work, and then consider how those aspects line up with their
personalities. This will give you a sense of how you might approach
your own job choices. Ask them what aptitudes and personality
characteristics they feel are necessary to perform effectively in their
positions.
• If you’re a student, pay close attention to what coursework you most
enjoy, and then speak with your instructor about possible career paths
based on that type of work. Research those that appeal to you, and do
informational interviews with practitioners if you can to learn more.

• Finally, consider that past is prologue, but not necessarily a lifelong
commitment. Wander back through your childhood, and remember
what activities used to delight you. What drew you to a nursing career
initially, and as you worked through your degree, did that passion stay
focused in the same areas or were you perhaps intrigued by another
aspect of the nursing field?

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14 | Transforming Healthcare Through Education