MyACT

Reliable and valid; developed by many key theorists in the field – Ages 13 & up 

College and Career Planning Experience from ACT.
MyACT focuses on college and career planning experiences including exploring interests, abilities, values, and preferred job characteristics and how they relate to careers and college majors.

MyACT helps individuals answer the question, “What do I want to do?” It includes three research-based assessments of career-relevant interests, abilities, and job values to help individuals consider career options that are a good match for them. It is based on a developmental approach to career guidance and incorporates the work of top career development theorists. It also contains a revised version of the ACT World of Work Map that helps clarify how job families are related and different. The map is based in substantial research involving analysis of several key databases: expert ratings of basic work tasks from the Department of Labor’s Occupational Information Network and ratings from the Department’s Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Interest Inventory scores of more than 200,000 persons in 640 occupations provide a third source of data.

Research and theoretical bases - Gives you confidence that the information provided to individuals is valid and correct for them.

The Career Map - Organizes vast amounts of information about occupations into six clusters, based on primary work tasks, that can help individuals focus on preparing for meaningful and appropriate employment. The Career Map is personalized based on the individual’s responses to the abilities and values inventories in addition to the interest inventory. To further clarify career choices, careers are divided into 26 different areas. When students click on a career area, they see a list of careers, and when they click on a particular career, they see extensive information about tasks, training, salaries, and much more associated with that career. From here, individuals can “favorite” different careers, majors, military careers, and schools to quickly revisit an area of interest later. When students return to the personalized insights page, they can check the alignment between their selections and their education plan.

Direct access to information - Supports quick and easy retrieval of current, comprehensive, meaningful information.

Occupation database - Provides detailed information about hundreds of occupations in the current U.S. labor market, with many ways to search the database. Related military occupations are also provided.

Educational options - Helps individuals identify postsecondary education or training alternatives for their career choice.
Over 20 years of research on Effectiveness, clearly supports the use of these tools to help individuals make informed career and educational decisions. Evidence shows that they are effective strategies to increase an individual’s:

• Career decidedness
• Career maturity
• Level of career development
• Career decision-making self-efficacy
• Vocational identity
• Career exploration behavior

Click Here to See the article published in the National Career Development Association’s Career Convergence written by Marilyn Maze & Gail Laferriere
http://ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/93467/_PARENT/layout_details_cc/false  

How Do We Use MyACT through North Idaho College Career Services?
We first schedule a follow-up appointment for each student, then we give them access and ask them to create an account and then complete the interest, abilities, and values inventories before we meet. During the meeting we guide them through exploring options on the Career Map indicated by their inventories and have them save favorites. We show them how to use the tool bar to quickly access saved favorites, to add related majors, and to find the excellent summary under Insights. These are the components of MyACT that our students seem to appreciate the most. They also appreciate that it is a tool they can return to again and again. It is theirs.

We administered learning outcomes surveys to students who used MyACT. Both the anecdotal evidence and survey results indicate that students find this tool to be extremely beneficial. We asked whether their experience with MyACT and follow-up counseling helped them move closer to identifying an appropriate career direction, and also how they would rate the degree of information they now have about themselves or the world of work, and how that relates to their career direction. The average responses were 4.5 on a 5-point scale, with 5 being the highest. ACT Profile has become an integral part of our work to provide the best career planning services that we can to our students and prospective students.

For access, call Career Services to schedule your 1&1/2 hour appointment, and then you will be given information on how to begin. 

How to make an appointment for My ACT:

1. Schedule a 1&1/2 hour appointment with one of our career counselors (include name, phone, email)
2. Within 3 business days, you will receive instructions via email to complete the inventories on My ACT website
4. Complete the MyACT inventories on the web site
5. Join the Zoom meeting with the career counselor at your scheduled appointment time to complete the exploration process and receive your results