#167 Scientifically Matching Your Teen to an Ideal Career Path with Amy Shepley Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

00:00:51] Lisa Marker Robbins: Are you tired of watching your teen struggle with career indecision or worried they’ll choose the wrong path? What if there was a scientifically validated way to match your teen’s unique personality and interest with careers where they’re most likely to thrive? Today’s conversation with Amy Shepley from Berkman International reveals how personality assessments can transform your teen’s career exploration journey.

[00:01:16] Lisa Marker Robbins: Amy shares insights into Berkman’s powerful Jobs List feature, a tool backed by millions of profiles and decades of research that matches individuals to careers where similar people have found long term satisfaction. We’ll explore how Berkman’s scientific approach differs from typical career quizzes, why their psychometrically validated assessment considers not just interest, but also work style preferences and needs, and how this comprehensive view helps teens discover career paths they might never have considered before.

[00:01:50] Lisa Marker Robbins: If you’re concerned about the ROI for your teen’s education, you’ll appreciate our discussion about how early career clarity can help avoid costly mistakes and lead to more confident decision making. Amy explains why the Berkman Assessment isn’t just a one time tool, but provides insights that remain relevant throughout your teen’s entire career journey, well into adulthood.

[00:02:15] Lisa Marker Robbins: Whether your teen is just beginning to think about potential careers, or struggling to narrow their options, this episode offers practical guidance on using personality insights as part of a comprehensive career exploration process. I’m Lisa, Marco Robbins, and I want to welcome you to college and career clarity, a flourish coaching production.

[00:02:35] Lisa Marker Robbins: Let’s dive right in to a great conversation.

[00:02:43] Lisa Marker Robbins: Amy Sheffley, welcome. I feel like you’ve been here before because we talk so much and I can’t tell her so much. I

[00:02:51] Amy Shepley: can’t believe I haven’t been here. I’m so excited to be here for my very first time.

[00:02:55] Lisa Marker Robbins: This is long overdue. So we need to lead with the fact that. Dr. Roger Berkman is your beloved grandfather.

[00:03:06] Amy Shepley: He is, uh, that’s always my x factor or my fun fact is that, um, I think He’s one of the most significant psychological industrial, um, you know, psychologists in the last gosh, 70 years. And what he did has such an impact on so many different people and so many different applications. Um, but the best part is he was truly just the most amazing human.

[00:03:31] Amy Shepley: So I’m proud of what he has contributed to, and I’m proud of the work that he does and that we continue that, but he was actually just the most amazing man.

[00:03:40] Lisa Marker Robbins: I love that he is so respected, and I would expand it well beyond the 70 years that you just said. I agree. So we had your mom on before Sharon Berkman, and she was on.

[00:03:53] Lisa Marker Robbins: So everybody knows she was on episode 43 the reason that we want to do these episodes is the Berkman personality assessment is you and I believe and I’m just going to say no, that there’s no better assessment out there. It’s unique. Your mom and I talked about that. So Sharon and I talked about that. We talked about what it measures, but in my work as a career coach with 16 to 25 year olds, we lean heavily not only into that self awareness that Sharon and I spoke about, but the job list that is generated from the Berkman that helps really instead of telling a young adult or a teenager, you could be anything, which is not true, um, It funnels it down to a more manageable list.

[00:04:44] Lisa Marker Robbins: to work on for their career development and advising. Yes. And so, my goal today is to really do a deep dive on the importance of this, how we get to that list, why is that list reliable, um, and how we use it. So, let’s dive right in. Let’s dive in. Okay, so, really, What we’re doing is a scientific approach to career advising, which, by the way, could be for anybody of any age.

[00:05:13] Lisa Marker Robbins: I just happen to work with 16 to 25 year olds. Correct. So why are we able to say we’re taking a scientific approach?

[00:05:22] Amy Shepley: So the reason we are able to say that we’re taking a scientific approach is that we are combining many different scales, many different dimensions of who somebody is, and the real key to that and, um, and Berkman is differentiated this way.

[00:05:37] Amy Shepley: This is a large word, but we are a psychometrically validated assessment. And so that means that we have to go through, um, every 10 years processes that demonstrate that we are valid and that we are reliable and everything that we do is rooted in science. And so there’s definitely a lot to learn and it’s interesting and it’s fun to learn about yourself, but there’s a lot of assessments that can do that and it’s fun, but they’re not necessarily rooted in science.

[00:06:02] Amy Shepley: So when we take a look at our job families, our job list. What you’re looking at is a list of how much you look similar to people who are working in those areas based on the dimensions that Berkman measures. So it’s not just, are you interested in the same types of things? It’s not just you show up in a usual style the same way, or do you have the same needs?

[00:06:24] Amy Shepley: We combine all of those. So you’re really getting this three dimensional look. But the key to that, and really the most important piece, is the, the The groups that we’re matching you to. So let’s say, um, we’re matching you to teachers. So we’re saying how much do you look like someone that would go into teaching the key to what makes our data so powerful is that those people had to be in that job for at least seven years and they said they were happy in that job.

[00:06:50] Amy Shepley: So it doesn’t mean they were just In the job, right? They didn’t get that job last year because especially using this example of teaching. We know there can be a high turnover in that area. They’ve been doing it for a while. And the big piece is that you’re saying they’re satisfied doing that job. So what we’re able to do is to take all of this data that you’re giving us when you fill out the questionnaire, you’re giving us all of this data.

[00:07:12] Amy Shepley: We essentially create a profile for you, um, that, that is your unique profile. Then we’re matching your profile to all of these different careers, all of these different profiles for people that are working in different areas and the higher the match, the more you look like people who stay in a career and are the most important.

[00:07:30] Amy Shepley: They’re satisfied in that career. They’re sticking around and they’re saying, I enjoy what I do. So I love

[00:07:36] Lisa Marker Robbins: the, I love the explanation of, you know, this we’re reliable and valid, like we are testing and retesting this. We have to prove that regularly because I get questions all the time from those that work in schools with teens and college students and recent graduates, parents, students, less so.

[00:07:57] Lisa Marker Robbins: Conserve with it. But like, how do I know that this is good? Right? How do I know that this is reliable? So that’s first, right? That’s first. So let’s back up for a second and explain how when somebody takes the Berkman. So let’s say, let’s stick with the teacher for a sec.

[00:08:19] Amy Shepley: Okay,

[00:08:20] Lisa Marker Robbins: let’s say a 40 year old teacher is sitting down to take the Berkman.

[00:08:27] Lisa Marker Robbins: How do we know what is asked of them that lets us know that they’ve been in the job for at least seven years and they love what they’re doing?

[00:08:36] Amy Shepley: Um, so that’s done through at the Both at the beginning of the questionnaire. So before you actually start the Berkman questionnaire, we collect a lot of data.

[00:08:46] Amy Shepley: It’s optional, so people don’t have to fill that out. And the data that we collect doesn’t impact their Berkman results at all. But it’s a way for us to track, um, where are they right now? And we actually even ask what few jobs they had before that. So what job are they in now and how long have they been in that job?

[00:09:02] Amy Shepley: And then if they’ve been in other jobs, we ask them to go back again. It’s all, um, All voluntary. So you can choose to do that or not. After you finish the Berkman questionnaire, then we have other follow up surveys that people get. And these are triggered at different times. So if someone takes the Berkman, you might not have this experience, right?

[00:09:22] Amy Shepley: So it’s certain things that are, are triggering different surveys on the end. And at the end of the questionnaire, we give job satisfaction surveys, right? So we collect and say, are you happy? Do you like this job? Do you like the people you work with? Do you like the environment and the pace? And that allows us to get the job satisfaction piece of the information.

[00:09:42] Amy Shepley: Now, the way I’m explaining it, this looks like this happens very quickly and it doesn’t. So these data collections are taking place over 5, 10, 15 years, right? Because we have to collect a lot of the data to be able to create these profiles that have these trends attached to them. So we, you know, in one, one moment that someone takes the questionnaire.

[00:10:03] Amy Shepley: We’re collecting a lot of data from that individual, but where the science comes from is collecting lots of data from lots of individuals. And that’s where we are able to start creating those profiles of groups of people that are in a job, they are staying in that job and they’re saying they’re happy in that job.

[00:10:20] Amy Shepley: And that’s really the shift of. Um, our goal is not just to say, what can you do? Like, what are you able to do? It’s more important for us to say, what can you do and where are you going to be really happy and love what you do? That’s, that’s the, that’s the key. That’s key.

[00:10:36] Lisa Marker Robbins: I mean, when you ask a parent, what do you want for your kids?

[00:10:41] Lisa Marker Robbins: And I don’t care how I don’t care if the kids little I don’t care. You know, my kids are in their twenties. I don’t care if you ask my parents who are 80 and I’m 56. The number 1 answer is I just wanted to be happy. Yeah, I don’t hear people say I want to be

[00:10:59] Amy Shepley: rich. No, absolutely not. And what’s challenging about that is, um, that there’s, there’s ways to be really good at things.

[00:11:07] Amy Shepley: And so, you know, one thing that we hear a lot is that people will be really great at math and the parents are like, it comes so naturally to you. You’ve always gotten straight A’s. You’ve always excelled and been identified for your math skills. And so it makes sense that we push them into that. And we say, you should go into finance or, you know, some type of math occupation.

[00:11:26] Amy Shepley: But with Berkman, we’re able to say, Hey, Even if you’re good at it, that doesn’t mean you’re interested in it. And interest with Berkman means it is fulfilling. It is motivating. It is energizing. I wake up in the morning and I’m excited to go to my job. It doesn’t just mean I can do it. Like I’m competent at it.

[00:11:42] Amy Shepley: Right. And especially when we’re talking about your particular demographic, it’s very hard. I think for parents to separate that skill doesn’t mean desire. And I think it can be challenging for us as parents to separate out that. Just because we’re interested in it doesn’t mean our child is and vice versa, right?

[00:12:00] Amy Shepley: It’s so hard for us to pull ourselves out of that equation And to really see like our child is a unique entity that is is not me. It’s difficult

[00:12:09] Lisa Marker Robbins: Yeah, I mean we we are we’re raising these and I’m a grandma now, too. So now we have like A grandson who’s turning one and I look at him and you already start to like dream for them, like what you want for them and happiness is there.

[00:12:23] Lisa Marker Robbins: But we also start to insert, Oh, that could mean they might be a fill in the blank.

[00:12:29] Amy Shepley: Absolutely. And, and so that. It’s good intentions, right? Like it’s not coming from a bad place, but it can lead people into very wrong careers and they can go and spend a lot of money on degrees and then they get into the job.

[00:12:45] Amy Shepley: And that’s the piece about the job satisfaction. It’s not just do I like the task, right? Like if I’m a teacher, I like teaching. It means. I like the environment that I’m in. I like the pace of the environment. I like that it allows me to have a lot of variety in the day. So it’s, it’s really getting at all the dimensions of the job, not just do I like the pure activity that the job is calling me to do.

[00:13:07] Amy Shepley: And so the higher your job match on that job list, then what it’s really saying is you look, walk, talk, think like people who are in this job. Uh, and that means that when you go into that job, The people are going to seem familiar to you. Like these are people that you get and they get you. And so that’s why something like what you do is so important because If you don’t have a high match on the job list, the answer is absolutely not that you shouldn’t do that.

[00:13:37] Amy Shepley: But it’s that we need to educate you a little bit more on what that might mean, right? So you’re going to go into this job. And what’s interesting is sometimes when you don’t look like a traditional person in a job, you actually take an approach that’s so unique that you become even better and you excel at it because it’s like, wow, people don’t normally teach like that.

[00:13:57] Amy Shepley: Like that’s what makes them so successful. However, it’s important for you to know Most of these people don’t think like you, right? So when you go into that job, be prepared and have awareness that they might not be the people you’re going to hang out with on the weekend because they’re kind of different from you.

[00:14:13] Amy Shepley: And that’s not a bad thing. But I think that’s where the value is of just the knowledge of Either this is going to feel seamless. Like these are your people. They are like you get them, they get you, it’s going to feel effortless. You’re never going to wonder if you’re in the wrong job or, Hey, you could actually have a really interesting point of view at this job, but you’re going to think differently from most of them.

[00:14:35] Amy Shepley: And so you’re going to need to know, there’s going to be a lot of times that you’re like, I don’t think they get me, or maybe I don’t get them. And that. If you’re aware of that, it’s, it’s something that you can decide if you want to sign up for that. But it’s why it’s the answer is not if I am high on a job title, if I’m, if a job is high on my job list, it’s a yes.

[00:14:54] Amy Shepley: And if it’s a low, it’s a no, it’s, it’s just not that straightforward. And that’s where the process you’re walking people through really helps them to understand that. It’s

[00:15:03] Lisa Marker Robbins: funny because People will ask me sometimes, can I just buy the Berkman from you? And I know what they really want is they just want the jobs list that we’re able to generate.

[00:15:12] Lisa Marker Robbins: And I’m always like, I’m not a reseller of the Berkman assessment. And quite frankly, like none of us are, that’s not what we do, right? We are consultants and coaches who use a tool and this tool adds value. And so a couple questions, a lot of things came to mind, but one,

[00:15:29] Amy Shepley: I want to

[00:15:29] Lisa Marker Robbins: add to

[00:15:30] Amy Shepley: that because I think they don’t just want the job list.

[00:15:33] Amy Shepley: My experience is in 20 years, they want a printout of this is the job to do. They want somebody to tell them what to do. Become a cardiac doctor. Yeah. And so we, we feel like that’s possible and it’s not what Berkman gives you is a lot of data. And then you have to really sit and say, what do I want out of my life?

[00:15:54] Amy Shepley: What’s important to me and this Berkman data. And that’s what creates the story that really allows people to put themselves on a trajectory. of the career that’s going to be satisfying. And so it’s, I would love it if we could just say input your data and we spit out the right career for you. Um, but it’s a process we’re complicated, right?

[00:16:11] Amy Shepley: What we want is different. And so it definitely streamlines those options, which makes it much more digestible and approachable, but you still have to look at this. Like it’s, it’s a, an investigation. It’s a detective journey of. What’s right for me? What do I want? What would be the implications of different careers or majors that I choose?

[00:16:31] Amy Shepley: And you have to really approach it like a journey. Well,

[00:16:33] Lisa Marker Robbins: it’s,

[00:16:34] Amy Shepley: you

[00:16:34] Lisa Marker Robbins: know, we would all like, Oh, should I, I’ve lived in Cincinnati my whole life. Oh, should I move? Like, would I be happier somewhere else? Well, I could investigate it and, but ultimately I have to make a decision among like a bunch of good options, right?

[00:16:49] Lisa Marker Robbins: Right. Right. But I can also funnel out. What looks like, Ooh, that’s cautionary. Cause to your point, I always say to people, there are green lights on this list. So if you have, we’ve got 23 job families, same ones that the department of labor uses. And so with those job families, if something’s towards the top of the list, I’m like, it’s basically saying your wiring as we measure it with our tool looks.

[00:17:17] Lisa Marker Robbins: Fantastically like the people who have been working in that job for a long time, and they absolutely love going to work every day. Doesn’t mean that they love everything about every day because there’s no job like that, but you so resemble those people. So you have a high chance of loving a career in that.

[00:17:33] Lisa Marker Robbins: So that’s a green light to me. Yes.

[00:17:35] Amy Shepley: Yes.

[00:17:35] Lisa Marker Robbins: But I also tell people there are no red lights. It is not my job to put a red light. So just because. Towards the end of the list, I always crack up when I look at my own jobs list, you know, I look at that stuff at the bottom, like, oh, yeah, well, you know, it’s like, oh, you’re a 0 percent match or a 10 or a 20 percent match on this.

[00:17:56] Lisa Marker Robbins: And sometimes we do get students in the course to your point where they the job they’ve been thinking about is a low match. And I’m like, it’s not my job to say red light, but I will say that’s a yellow light. There’s some caution. Yeah, you should. Slow down, take your foot off the gas a little bit. Don’t put it on the break, but investigate deeply, you know, and that’s where we then take that list and we teach them to research online.

[00:18:24] Lisa Marker Robbins: We go ahead and then we say, okay, let’s set you up for how to ask for informational interviews and job shadows and internship. Certifications you can get so that you really can vet among your good choices.

[00:18:37] Amy Shepley: Yeah. I love your example of, you know, do I want to move or live somewhere else? And what you’re really saying is.

[00:18:43] Amy Shepley: Let’s go visit that place and maybe spend a week or two in that place and, and get a feel for, you know, do I like the weather and do I like the food and do I like the culture of this place and, and that’s the process that, that you help people go through when they’re trying to decide, um, is it that I don’t know enough about the job to know that I wouldn’t like it?

[00:19:01] Amy Shepley: Or do I really like it? I’m just going to approach it from a very different way. And that could actually make me incredibly successful. I will say it’s definitely rare that I come across somebody who has an idea that they want to do a job that’s very, very low. Um, that’s, that’s not super common. It is common.

[00:19:20] Amy Shepley: I think what’s more common is I think I want to do this and then seeing that data is validation for, okay, and now it gives me the confidence that what I was being drawn to there’s there’s scientific data to back that up. And so it’s more the validation, uh, that yes, this is a, this is a, this is a green light, as you would say.

[00:19:39] Amy Shepley: I

[00:19:40] Lisa Marker Robbins: remember when my. Now 20, I’m trying to, he’ll be, he’s going to be 27 right now, 26. I’m like, when are we airing this? He’ll still be 26 for a hot minute. Um, so when my 26 year old did his Berkman, which of course, as parents, we, you know, from a young age, we’re like, Oh, I can’t wait till they’re old. I can’t

[00:20:00] Amy Shepley: wait.

[00:20:00] Amy Shepley: My daughter’s 10 and I’m like,

[00:20:02] Lisa Marker Robbins: who are you? I know. It’s like, it’s too early. It’s so hard to wait. But we want to, even my stepdaughter the other day, I was like, can my friend take that? You know, she’s 31. So that’s, that’s good. But even like, so Trent, my 26 year old, he, he thought he wanted to go into computer engineering.

[00:20:26] Lisa Marker Robbins: We also know engineering and it actually wasn’t even 100 percent that it would be computer, but engineering, uh, there were some signs. So I’m like, well, let’s validate it. See, do you look like happy engineers? And what kind of happy engineers do you look like? And. Engineering can be really tough. Like he’s a smarty pants.

[00:20:45] Lisa Marker Robbins: And so I felt like he could do it. But he even said, if I get in there and it’s too tough, or I encounter something, I’d also like to know what my other options are. And so it a validated what he was thinking about. And B gave him a really solid backup so that he thought like, okay, it actually kind of removed some pressure in that way.

[00:21:12] Lisa Marker Robbins: Well, I think

[00:21:12] Amy Shepley: it’s also, you know, I, this kind of seems attractive, but what else is out there that I might love that I don’t know about? Right. There’s a lot you don’t know about. Yeah. And when you’re younger, you, you don’t know what jobs are necessarily and what’s out there and what they, what they involve.

[00:21:27] Amy Shepley: And so even if it’s like, Hey, I think it’s engineering and the Burtman validates that it also gives you other suggestions of like, but let me make sure that I don’t want to do anything else more. Right. So it’s, it kind of goes back to. It’s going to increase your confidence because it’s like, here’s who you look like.

[00:21:46] Amy Shepley: Is there anything you maybe have never thought about? And you’re like, gosh, I didn’t even know that was a job that happens quite a bit. Right. Where they’re like, what is that job? And you’re like, oh, well, you know, this is what they do. And someone’s like, oh, that sounds really fun. And so some of it is just even the exposure to what jobs are and what jobs are out there.

[00:22:02] Amy Shepley: But the match is obviously a huge source of confidence, but also. Knowing that there isn’t something that you would love even more and that you’re able to kind of go investigate those and weigh those different career options and then feel more confident moving forward, right? It’s the it’s the lack of clarity that can create anxiety.

[00:22:19] Amy Shepley: So the more data we have, then the more we’re able to go forward with confidence and know like I can be all in on this in my journey. College. And then when I leave college and I go into my my job.

[00:22:30] Lisa Marker Robbins: Yeah, you know, one of the things that is you were talking about, like the other options, like, what are some other good fits and things like that?

[00:22:37] Lisa Marker Robbins: I’ve often also found where there are, as you and I both know, especially from a data perspective, when we look at these. There are people who there are a lot of really great fits for, right? So they’ll have two pages of great fits. There are others that they’ve got a one page solid fit. That’s where they should start.

[00:22:58] Lisa Marker Robbins: Um, in my experience with the students that we’ve supported, I also, we should say, Berkman has not mapped every single career in the universe. Right, because there’s new careers every day. There’s new careers every day. There’s not time to do everyone, but you guys have vetted careers in every job family.

[00:23:18] Lisa Marker Robbins: Yes, and so by these career clusters that we could call them, what were. Saying is like you there are other jobs in here. So this again can’t be your fill. You’re now going to be a fill in the blank. So we start with this, but then I’ve had students where they ultimately end up doing something that’s a blend of two different job families.

[00:23:42] Lisa Marker Robbins: Oh, interesting. Yeah. Right? So it again, it’s not going to be the fill in the blank, but it’s like, Oh, both of these interest me. And through the process of researching the jobs, like what we do in module of my course is very investigative 1st. Just online, and then second through real world experiences and through that discovery process, then they are encountering other jobs that even on Berkman, we haven’t mapped them.

[00:24:12] Lisa Marker Robbins: But you know what? Oh, what job family does that fall into? Oh, that job family is a high match for me. Yeah, and so I have seen this blend where I all say, like, oh, that job kind of has a foot over here and a foot over here.

[00:24:27] Amy Shepley: Yeah, I love that because let’s say you’re high on public relations and that’s where you want to go.

[00:24:32] Amy Shepley: But you’re high on artistic. So it’s like, well, public relations for, um, a firm that has an artistic point of view. Now you’ve doubled up on what you enjoy, right? You’re plugging into two things that really, uh, motivate you and excite you, which means your chances of, um, you know, satisfaction and really being happy in that job go up.

[00:24:50] Amy Shepley: The other thing that comes to mind is that because we don’t just provide it. Career data. We provide other data about how you show up your usual style and your needs. What you need from the environment is let’s, you know, take your son. He maybe knows he wants to be a computer engineer, but you can use that other data to say what’s the right type of company for you to be a computer engineer?

[00:25:11] Amy Shepley: Do you want to go to a really big corporate company? Would you like that? Would that be fulfilling? Or would you rather find more of a kind of boutique engineering firm that’s smaller? And you know, there’s, there’s fewer people. So again, it’s just another layer of data that’s going to help guide that, that there’s so many options, right?

[00:25:28] Amy Shepley: So anything we can do to, to, to close that funnel is going to help us hit a target. That’s going to be the right target for us. That is going to translate to a job where we’re happy. Cause to your point, if you can do that, you’re winning at life. Like that’s a good life left. Yeah.

[00:25:43] Lisa Marker Robbins: You know, I get a lot of questions around like Berkman.

[00:25:46] Lisa Marker Robbins: What’s that? You know, I’ve heard of this assessment over there. And so you guys are a family owned company still. And so, and I say, well, sometimes that’s 1 reason why you haven’t heard of it where, you know, it’s a family owned company and this assessment’s The others, but I’ve always been a proponent of you get what you pay for if it’s free online and takes 15 or 20 minutes to do, that’s what the kind of results you should expect.

[00:26:19] Amy Shepley: And I’ve even heard feedback from other assessments that aren’t free, that take hours and hours. And the output is not necessarily great scientific output. I’ve had a lot of

[00:26:28] Lisa Marker Robbins: people do that one that then come to me for this course. Oh, is that right?

[00:26:33] Amy Shepley: Yeah, that didn’t go well. Um, and here’s the thing. If there’s any place in the Berkman, we, we do a lot of applications, right?

[00:26:40] Amy Shepley: So career is one application of the Berkman. If there is any application where the ROI is so easy to demonstrate, it’s helping your child choose a college and choose a career, right? It’s to choose wrong and to make even for one semester, the cost of that is so significant, not to mention the cost to the, to the child or, you know, the student of, I didn’t do well at that.

[00:27:01] Amy Shepley: And I picked wrong. There’s even a cost to just the, the emotional toll that that that’s hard on a, on a student, that’s hard on somebody at that, that point in their, um, in their lives. And so it is more expensive. It is a more sophisticated assessment. It’s in my opinion, the most sophisticated assessment in the market that is non clinical.

[00:27:21] Amy Shepley: So, you know, anything that we’d get more sophisticated, you’re in a different, in a different domain. And it’s just something that is an investment. You know, child or student can use that for the rest of their lives, right? That the dividends that that pays, it’s not true for that moment. It’s really true for a good part of their life.

[00:27:40] Amy Shepley: And so to have that data, to keep guiding them to understand who they are, understand, you know, what makes them tick, what makes them happy and how they translate that to a career and to a college major. It’s just a no brainer.

[00:27:53] Lisa Marker Robbins: Well, and before we start hit record, you and I were having fun talking about at  our ages and our 40s and 50s, how like the applications we still have and how we continue to come back to it.

[00:28:06] Lisa Marker Robbins: How many people have taken the Berkman at this point? Um, it’s, it’s definitely

[00:28:11] Amy Shepley: millions. I don’t know the exact number. I always

[00:28:14] Lisa Marker Robbins: throw, I’ve always heard 3. 5 million and then I’m like, it continues to go up.

[00:28:19] Amy Shepley: Yeah. We, we don’t, we should have a ticker in the office that says, you know, we should do that. Um, but it’s, it’s millions for sure in your,

[00:28:28] Lisa Marker Robbins: in your free time.

[00:28:29] Lisa Marker Robbins: Get that ticker going, ask somebody to do that. Do you know, so when we, we, we yield this report and it says you look exactly like the people who are working adult working population who are working in this job, have persistence and are thriving, how many individuals. Does it take to say that they have validated a career or a job title?

[00:28:59] Amy Shepley: So to create a psychometric profile, you need at least 100 that would be, I always had heard number. So you can imagine more common jobs. We would have thousands and thousands of data points. Um, but when you’re talking about newer jobs, when they just don’t exist and you want to start mapping those, you, you need to at least get to a hundred and we need to find people.

[00:29:25] Amy Shepley: So when we’re looking at that, We want to find people that are satisfied and saying, I like the job that I’m in and people that are saying, I do this job and I don’t like it. That’s where you really get the value of not only do you look like people that Uh do enjoy it You don’t look like people who are doing it and saying i’m i’m not satisfied in my job And that’s really the holy grail when you’re building profiles Um, that’s the holy grail is to be able to say We can actually see the difference between people that like it and are saying i’m happy and people that are they have the job They’re doing it And they’re not happy in that job.

[00:29:58] Lisa Marker Robbins: Well, you know, as, as much as on my end, sometimes it can be frustrating going like, let’s get more jobs mapped. Let’s get more jobs mapped. Yeah. I actually appreciate the fact that your guys are like, Nope, this is a long game. , we need to have the right numbers. We need to have those who love it, those who don’t love it.

[00:30:17] Lisa Marker Robbins: Yeah. So that we’ve really got a valid data set.

[00:30:20] Amy Shepley: And here’s the, an important point to that is that of course when you see the job titles and they’re very specific, um, that’s helpful. But the job families are the themes. And so if there’s new jobs that you don’t see in the Berkman, it’s, you don’t have that as a job title, that’s where you can really help them to say.

[00:30:39] Amy Shepley: What job families, what are the themes of that job and what job families would that relate to? So you can get to that answer, even if it’s not a profile and a job title that we have in the database at this time. Um, that’s the other value. I think there’s so much value and I sometimes I’m, I’m such a Berkman nerd.

[00:30:56] Amy Shepley: I do this for myself, but when you go on Onet and you, you know, you find a job that you’re interested in and you’re like, that’s interesting when you go on Onet. It will say other similar jobs. And so if you look like this job here and they’re saying, here’s jobs that are very similar, that’s even more for you to go to explore.

[00:31:14] Amy Shepley: Right. And so that’s where it really becomes like this fun detective process where you can get in there and you can keep clicking on those, you know, similar jobs, similar jobs. And, and there’s so much there that you can kind of look through and explore. So I would say the Berkman, I think we have. Um, 300 or something around 300 specific job profile titles.

[00:31:36] Amy Shepley: Uh, but there’s way more to learn outside of those just based on which titles you look similar to. And then of course, if you’ve got someone that’s an expert in this, they can help say, if that’s a newer job, let me show you like where I would think that would fall with the job families. We actually

[00:31:51] Lisa Marker Robbins: teach like in module three, cause I would say.

[00:31:54] Lisa Marker Robbins: We’re first going to take the world’s your oyster. You can be anything we’re going to funnel it down to a more manageable, less overwhelming list for the average 16 to 25 year old or human being. Let’s just put it that way. And then we’re actually going to take that number and we’re going to like expand it a little bit more.

[00:32:12] Lisa Marker Robbins: And I just, we do a monthly Q and a with the course. And I had a student the other day and we were talking through it. We were talking about. Could you be a user experience, specialty, career, uh, on, I forget what, drawing a blank on what it was specifically, but it was how to improve the user experience on whatever they were thinking about.

[00:32:38] Lisa Marker Robbins: Well, even O Net, BLS, they don’t have that built out yet. And if you go to O Net, it’ll say currently collecting data, even they, it’s not just you, on any of these jobs. However, Through similar jobs and Onet will tell you what job family number something belongs to. We, we teach people how to back end.

[00:33:01] Amy Shepley: Oh, okay.

[00:33:02] Lisa Marker Robbins: I

[00:33:02] Amy Shepley: didn’t know that. Yeah, on

[00:33:03] Lisa Marker Robbins: BLS, on the Occupational Outlook Handbook, they don’t tell you what job family number it is, but on the SOC classification, this is getting so technical for people, but it’s, I get geeked out on this as well. But like if you, on Onet, you can back into identifying the number. Then go into the SOC classification list to say, Oh, that job that even the government, the Department of Labor saying, like, we don’t have a lot for you.

[00:33:31] Lisa Marker Robbins: We’re still collecting like, uh, growth rate and average pay and similar jobs and things like that. You are able to backdoor it and go, Oh, this would be in this job family. And that was a high match, medium match or low match for me on my Berkman.

[00:33:49] Amy Shepley: See, I didn’t know that. So even I’m learning more. I

[00:33:53] Lisa Marker Robbins: think every time we talk, we both learn

[00:33:55] Amy Shepley: something.

[00:33:56] Amy Shepley: Yeah. And the other thing I think that’s so important because we’re talking about a lot about the top job list, your top job, you know, titles is also that. in conjunction with your interest, right? Because you may have a very high interest. That’s not going to be part of that job that you ultimately end up in.

[00:34:14] Amy Shepley: And there’s so much research that your satisfaction of the job will go up if you’re fulfilling those interests outside of work too. So it’s just another layer of, yes, you know, if we can find the job that you like, you look like people that do that, you’re excited about it. You have confidence to your point.

[00:34:30] Amy Shepley: Not every job is going to have. You know, you’re not going to like all elements of it, and it’s not going to include all the things that maybe you really are passionate about. And so starting early on being intentional about looking at those high interest and continuing those because that’s interest outside of work are going to fuel job satisfaction at work, right?

[00:34:48] Amy Shepley: You cannot separate those two. When I’m happy outside of work and doing things that I love, where I have a high interest, it’s going to make me more recharged and refreshed, which is going to make me enjoy that job more. And so I, you know, it’s just another, it’s, it’s an onion, right? Like there’s all these layers of, um, dimensions that we, we collect about somebody and it’s such a.

[00:35:09] Amy Shepley: I, um, one of the most challenging moments in my time at Berkman in the last 20 years, and it hasn’t happened a lot, but I’ve had it happen three or four times. And I’ve been with, uh, um, men who were engineers and they were in their six seats and we were going through their Berkman. And when they looked at their job lists, Engineering was low and they started crying because it’s like, this is why I’ve been miserable.

[00:35:34] Amy Shepley: I’ve been in a job that I thought I would make money. I could do it. I was decent at it and it has. Almost killed me to continue to do this job and they see that data. And for them, they’re at this point of, do I go back and you know, how do you start over? That’s a harder conversation. And it’s just such a gift to like not let people get to that point.

[00:35:56] Amy Shepley: Right. Um, and to know those answers ahead of time and not just the right, uh, direction for a career, but also what do I need? You know, what, what do I need to make sure I’m getting from a job or even outside of the job? What are my interests? What. You know, an invaluable gift to give. Someone that’s young, that you don’t have to learn these lessons the hard way.

[00:36:16] Amy Shepley: You know, we don’t, you don’t have to. We can give you this data, give you this roadmap and let you just maximize your journey. Uh, and so I, it’s to me, just, it’s such a gift.

[00:36:25] Lisa Marker Robbins: Well, Amy, thank you. You know, we’re going to put a sample report out for people to see. That is the report that we use in the course.

[00:36:34] Lisa Marker Robbins: So it’ll be at flourishcoachingco. com forward slash Berkman. One of my favorite words. And so, because I know this just fuels people. I’m like, okay, but I want to see it. So we’re going to, we’re going to get it out there as a sample report. Okay, we have to do this again. We do. We do.

[00:36:53] Amy Shepley: And I would say, you know, what the process that you offer, this is the easiest way to get to the answer.

[00:36:58] Amy Shepley: If anyone tells you they can spit out an answer of what job you should do, save your money and run, run the other way. It’s not possible. If we can’t do it, nobody can do it. I feel confident to say that. So it’s worth the investigation. It’s worth the opportunity to learn about yourself, right? So it’s not even just about that answer.

[00:37:15] Amy Shepley: It’s really There’s so much data in there that sets people up for success. And to get that early, it’s, it’s, I don’t know how you put a value on it.

[00:37:23] Lisa Marker Robbins: I agree. Well, Amy, thank you for taking the time. Thank you. I appreciate you. You too.

[00:37:35] Lisa Marker Robbins: I hope you found today’s conversation with Amy Shepley enlightening and you now understand why I’ve used the Berkman for over 15 years. Understanding how scientifically validated tools like the Berkman can help your teen find career direction is truly game changing for families navigating the college journey.

[00:37:55] Lisa Marker Robbins: Remember, the jobs list is just one valuable piece of career exploration, but it’s a powerful one that can open doors to possibilities your team might never have considered before. As Amy explained, finding that alignment between personality, interest, and career can make all the difference in your team’s future satisfaction and success.

[00:38:17] Lisa Marker Robbins: Now, if you’d like to see exactly what we’re talking about, I’ve made a sample of the Berkman Report we use in our Launch Career Clarity course available for download for you. This sample includes the actual job match list we discussed today, so you can actually visualize how this tool might help your own team gain clarity about their future.

[00:38:38] Lisa Marker Robbins: Just visit flourishcoachingco. com forward slash berkman to download your copy. I’ll also put that link in the show notes. And my friend, if you found today’s episode valuable, please share it with other parents who are helping their teens navigate these important decisions. Don’t forget to subscribe to College and Career Clarity wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

[00:39:02] Lisa Marker Robbins: Until next time, I’m Lisa Marca Robbins reminding you that with the right tools and guidance, your teen can flourish.