Making career decisions with a vocational evaluation

Vocational evaluation helps career decisions

A funny thing, we teach people everything. We teach them to read, to write, and to do arithmetic. The one thing we don't teach is how to make good career decisions.  That we leave to chance or worse, let our relatives decide.

There are a number of reasons to select a particular vocational goal, reasons both good and bad. Let's start with the good reasons. You have done a particular type of job or observed it being done, and you enjoyed it. If this is the case the choice is easy. It becomes more difficult as you add additional variables like having a disability or having doubt about your skills or your interests.

Enter the vocational evaluation.. This is an opportunity often made available in the rehabilitation world to examine skills, abilities, interests, and other factors to help point you toward an area that you can do well and that you will enjoy. Typically vocational evaluations are performed by an individual with a rather unique background, he has been trained in areas related both to the world of work and in disability related areas, understanding the implications of a back impairment, a visual impairment, learning disabilities or other conditions.

Typically a vocational evaluation can take a day, two days, a week, or longer. It may vary with the complexity of issues such as more severe disabilities may take longer to perform a valid assessment.

In Dallas, one of the premier vocational evaluation agencies is Career Assessment Services at 6500 Greenville Avenue, Suite 228. The phone number is 214-692-8990. The typical price of a vocational evaluation is about $300 and is often paid for by rehabilitation providers such as the Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services.

The thing that makes the vocational evaluation so important is that many people have spent thousands of dollars and several years on training only to discover that they could not find a job, did not like it, or could not perform it because of their disability. The vocational evaluation can take these issues into account.

The vocational evaluation is not career counseling because it examines more than just interests and aptitudes. It looks at your abilities, personality style, and any physical limitations.