Saddleback College encourages students to let their personality guide them in career building workshop

Pre-COVID-19 personality career workshop at Saddleback College. Donnie Mineo/Courtesy

Saddleback workshop helps guide students on which career path to take

Saddleback is currently offering a personality career workshop led by Career Guidance Specialist Donnie Mineo. The workshop, Let Your Personality Guide You to New Careers, looks at how personalities and preferences can help identify potential career choices for attendees by having them take a personality test.

“No one magically randomly wakes up one day and knows what they want to do with the rest of their lives,” Mineo said. “With the personality test, you need to make sure you’re answering as confident as possible, think about the answer to the question 100 times, and see where your preference lies.”

The workshop uses The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is a well-known personality test. While there are various types of MBTI tests and even some that cost money, the one used for this workshop is complimentary. It also has a few questions and does not take long to complete.

“Deciding on a career path you want to pursue for the rest of your life is not easy,” said Autumn Littiken, a former Saddleback College student.“It’s nice that there are tools like this that should help make it easier and guide you through any questions you may have on possible careers that you want to pursue.”

The workshop runs for 1.5 hours, with a bulk of the time focusing on the personality test, and begins by going over different services and workshops offered by Saddleback. Following a short introduction, workshop attendees then take the MBTI test, review their answers, and are given a worksheet with different careers that match their personalities and preferences.

The remainder of the time in the workshop is left open for answering questions attendees may have. Other career workshops are also offered at Saddleback, like the Virtual Career Road Trip. This workshop helps students become familiar with the career assessment tool and learn about the career paths of professionals using Roadtrip Nation.

On Thursdays, there is a “Choose Your Major” workshop, where students learn the structure of higher education in California and how to research various career paths.

“I didn’t know that this workshop was offered at Saddleback,” Littiken said. “I think I would be interested in doing this so I could see what category of career I would fall under.”

Anyone can join these career workshops, and one does not need to be a student to attend these meetings as they are a resource to help anyone.

“I think it’s great that something like this is being offered to anyone who wants help on their career path,” Littiken said.

This particular workshop is not only for those who are unsure about their major or career. However, people who know what they want to do can also get some additional guidance by taking the personality career assessment workshop.

“We have people from out of state join in,” Mineo said. “It’s also a good way to gain clarity if you know what you want to pursue.”

Personality workshops are held on Tuesdays via Zoom. The times and dates for these workshops are on Saddleback’s homepage in the calendar during the spring, summer and fall semesters. Attendees must RSVP to get access to the Zoom meeting.

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