noticing verbal and non-verbal behaviours may stop for clarifications or intervene as
needed. The counsellor may inquire about family, career or social relations in order to
better understand the way the client makes decisions.
If the subject is uncertain about his/her self-image, knowledge or understanding of the
contents of certain professions, or choosing an occupation from several available offers,
the counsellor may suggest self-testing. The process itself gives the client the opportunity
of clarification and confirms the counsellor’s trust in the client’s capacity to solve career-
related problems without outside help. In a subsequent session, the counsellor may ask
questions and clarify on the one hand the client’s perceptions of the card sorting and on
the other the results. This is a less time-consuming procedure without being less
informative.
Standard testing procedure of card sorting technique involves the following stages
(Slaney and MacKinnon-Slaney, 1990, 2000):
- Stage I: Counselees are prompted to read each of the six descriptions of the
Holland vocational personality types and order them according by the degree
of reflection of their own selves, starting with the most similar. The order is
written down on a sheet of paper for further use. - Stage II: Counselees sort the cards with activity fields into three groups,
according to the expressed interest: “I have great interest in these activities”,
“I have little or no interest in these activities”, and “I dislike these
activities”. The client focus then on the first five activities of the greatest
interest and the 5 activities that are the most repulsive, and writes them down
on the sheet of paper. - Stage III: Clients are asked to divide occupation cards into the following
categories: “I may choose”, “unsure” and “I would not choose”. After
selection, they are asked to examine in turn occupations in each category. For
“I would not choose”, occupations are grouped according to common
features. For instance, people often view dentist and doctor as related and
usually group them together. When all the cards under “I would not choose”
have been grouped, common features will label each group. The labels may
focus upon values, aptitudes, fears, family-related aspects, social or economic
status, educational or financial aspects, etc. The groups and labels are also
written down.
After this stage has been completed, clients turn to the category “unsure”.
They will be asked to analyse the occupations in this category and decide
whether they would like more information on some. Information sources can
be discussed later. Finally, clients must specify why these occupations have
been placed under “unsure” and how relevant their status is in the process of
career change.