Blog Post 9- Career Development Case Study Interview Experience

In the coming week, our career development case study projects will be due. For the purpose of my blog post this week, I thought it appropriate to discuss my experience in interviewing my subject. Due to confidentiality limitations, I will keep the person's name and identifying details private, however, I do want to share a few findings from my interview last Wednesday.

Prior to starting the interview, I was a bit nervous and had some automatic thoughts about how it would turn out. But, it was actually a great discussion and I learned a lot about my subject's career and personal development.  As it turned out, my subject was actually really familiar with career counseling and career development, which was a huge relief! He clearly understood the project and was very pleased to be apart of it, despite a hectic schedule.

My subject shared with me that he views his current position as a cultivation of everything he has previously work toward. In other words, his position now is exactly what he saw himself as, which lends itself to him being extremely satisfied with his current position. This is always a nice thing to hear, as not too many individuals can say that!

Toward the end of the interview, my subject identified that they believe that Bloch’s Chao's theory is highly relatable to their career path. He described some experiences that could be classified as point, torus and definitely some strange attractors during his journey getting to where he is now. As I mentioned before, it was extremely helpful interviewing him, having him already know and understand a lot about career development and career theory. Going into the interview, I didn’t have any theory in mind, but it cool that he gave me one to work with.

In already starting this assignment I’m already noticing just how well that this fits with the information obtained in the interview.  However, I’m having a little difficulty with how the theory does not fit with this individual’s career path. If any classmates reading this would have any ideas, I would certainly be open to them!

As Bloch (2006) mentions, "working in a setting that harmonizes with your talents, interests and values" is an important part of workplace harmony. My subject actually brought this up during the interview, saying that they are happy to come into work each day and work along side individuals with a wide variety of diverse backgrounds.  This individual believes that they are able to use their values and interests in their day-day activities at work, which provides further satisfaction in his current position.

This was definitely a great experience and I look forward to hearing about some of the experiences that my fellow peers have had with their case studies as well!