The Need for Career Planning

Your career planning decisions and the career path you choose will determine the patterns and texture of your life and career – whom you marry, where you live, your income, how much time you spend at home, your travels, and how you spend your leisure time. Nevertheless, after years of research and work in career planning, we have concluded that most students leave high school and college without any clear plan to guide them in selecting and pursuing a career or occupation.

We have also concluded that when people feel overwhelmed by a job or career, they often fail to plan adequately for the changes they need to make to restore balance in their lives. The recognition of a career problem does not automatically trigger the career planning that is necessary to alleviate the problem.

The Highlands Ability Battery in Career Planning

The Highlands Company has responded by creating an entire career planning process which assures the development of a sound career plan. The process begins with the online Highlands Ability Battery, the gold standard among tests assessing innate abilities, and ends with a Personal Vision, i.e., a way to see into the future and link yourself to on-going career planning that points the way and draws you forward.

Good career planning provides a plan that is a “detailed formulation of a program of action.” It requires the integration of Eight Critical Career Factors which combine to make every individual unique – his innate abilities, his skills, his interests, his values, his goals, his family history, his personal style and characteristics, and his position in the Career Development Cycle.

More than 165 Affiliates of the Highlands Company have been trained and Certified to offer and administer the Highlands Ability Battery and to interpret its results in a two-hour personal consultation. These Affiliates are located throughout the world. They will help you with your career planning so that you can develop a career development plan for success and fulfillment. To select an Affiliate, go to Find an Affiliate.