Career Guidance for Gifted, Talented and 2e Individuals
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold
story inside of you.
Maya Angelou
What are common scenarios for gifted, talented and 2e individuals?
Sometimes academically gifted teenagers can be more certain of career choices sooner than other students but they’re still not capable to manage their real career plan. Navigating independently the complex career decision-making process demands maturity. Academically gifted are pressured and directed toward a limited number of occupations considered “appropriate,” namely, doctor, lawyer, engineer, and business person even when they have the academic potential for success in a multitude of careers.
I know this is “easier said than done” situation and it’s hard to find the balance. We have to choose wisely.
We shouldn’t intervene by proposing, for example, to a child who showed early emergence of talent to be more well-rounded in his/her interest. Neither propose to a gifted with high sensitivity to choose a career where his/her emotional safety and health could be in disbalance on regular basis in certain occupational settings or careers that generate too much of stress. The same traits that make children vulnerable in school can cause problems for adults on the job. Therefore, a career that demands the high energy level and creativity, a gifted adult with overexcitabilities can show prodigious production, but may also show inability to finish projects once the novelty wears off. The same goes for gifted belonging to racial, ethnic, or religious minorities or gifted and talented gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans-gender students: they should involve highly personal factors when choosing their professional future.
In case that some gifted and talented individuals choose service-oriented careers rather than material-wealth-oriented careers, we have to help them realize that service-oriented occupations are often accompanied by low salaries, high personal demands, and low professional status.
The gifted need our help! This doesn’t mean we should choose for them either.
They need to choose the career options based on their own personal strengths and interests. Gifted and talented students should definitely examine possibilities for brand-new careers matching their particular personality. For those we call “scanners” or “multipotentials”, hybrid career path, in order to be fulfilled professionally, can be the only option. (Learn more here about our workshop for multipotentials.) This is what circular career guidance is all about.
What about difference between gifted boys and girls?
Career decision for gifted women is more stressful than for gifted boys. Girls show lower occupational aspirations (may start as early as at the age of 6) and other-centeredness, which is higher susceptibility and influence of attitudes and opinions of significant others on them. They may employ delaying or avoiding post-secondary education as a strategy to reduce the discrepancy between career and family goals.
Here is a story that demonstrate this fact:
“Although she had dreamed of pursuing a career in theatre, her best friends told her that not only was this choice not practical, but that they would not be able to attend a performing arts school with her. Her overly protective parents wanted her to remain close to home to continue association with their church and cultural center. Kyra decided to attend the nearest state university, registering as an English major largely because she had a good rapport with her senior-year English teacher.
When asked what career she will pursue, Kyra explains that she likes politics, theatre, and working with children; that she would like to write for a major newspaper or magazine; or, if nothing else came along, she might teach.
She readily admits that she has no real career plan and that she has no idea how to actually become a newspaper journalist, or what types of work exist in politics. Kyra is much more definite about her future lifestyle — she wants to be married, live in a nice house in the suburbs, and have a job that does not require traveling or commuting, and allows her to take time off to raise two children. She explains that she attends a university that may not have the right program for her and she does not really understand the realities of the work world. Kyra is one of the gifted adrift, passively waiting for a career to float by, rather than being actively involved in planning a career.
Source: 66/Roeper Review, Volume 25, No 2
Inadequate career services have left many of our
gifted and talented students adrift, forcing them to
tread water until a flotation device passes by or to
learn on their own to swim to the nearest shore.
Meredith J. Greene
You’re Gifted, Talented or 2e? What’re the benefits of Strengths-based Career Consulting for you?
When your individual profile has not being addressed in holistic way, and on time, you, as gifted, talented & 2e, risk more crisis in life than the life of balance.
Together with individual educational plans (IEPs) adapted to your needs, we must also envision individualised and multidimensional career counselling. To avoid rejection, misunderstanding, or even the aggressiveness to which you’re often the object, I give you keys to “surf” better on the waves of life as gifted.
GiftedLab’s “Surf Course”
This starts with detecting your multiple intelligences and inner strengths. With Strengths-Based Career Consulting Approach that we offer in GiftedLab, you’ll discover your inner strengths, gain access to actions that can make your top strengths bloom, in general academic life, study habits, relationships, and career. You will also be challenged to think about applying and using your own strengths in other settings (i.e. sessions and meetings). If you make your strengths a habit, you’ll thrive in life applying them to life challenges.Thus you will be able to facilitate changes, adaptations, mobility and career management better.
To propose beneficial and well-matched career consulting service to gifted, talented and 2e individuals, I, in GiftedLab, take into consideration your need for:
- adjusting of timing, pace, complexity, intensity of the activities to the advanced cognitive levels
- acceptance of specific gifted personality traits multipotentiality, perfectionism, uneven development, heightened empathy, compassion, high levels of intensity, sensitivity, and creativity etc.
- addressing gender issue, in particular career needs of females
- showing concrete examples of varied adult role models
- reducing the overemphasis on academics
- fulfilling work as important part of the identity of gifted, talented & 2e
- showing appropriate options in case of early cognitive and vocational maturity
- choosing a career path so that your creative production, identity and health are not constantly in crisis in an occupational setting
- releasing the pressure to make the perfect career choice to please significant others including parents, teachers, and peers
- choosing the path that matches the best your authenticity (to be in the “flow”)
- providing options for those who have /had painful school experiences and feel/felt adrift
- exposure to world of work and experiencing reality of job, through career fairs, guest speakers, mentorships, campus visits, and the like
- personal assessment of abilities and/or interests • receiving support, separately or in combination, in case of underachievement (emotional issues, social or behavioural issues, curricular issues, learning disabilities, and/or poor self-regulation)
- Help you, as gifted, understand and plan for the reality that the passion for and enjoyment of a particular interest that you crave, cannot always be found or maintained in a career
Career decision-making
for gifted students is
unique in some ways.
Emmett & Minor, 1993; Kelly, 1996; Perrone, 1997
You’re Manager or HR Director in charge of Gifted Adults/HPIs?
If you are in charge of gifted adults /HPIs (highly intelligent people) or you’re a manager who support them in their careers, you know they’re intelligent, efficient people who learn quickly. You believe they should play a very important role putting their multiple talents into service of your firm. Even more, you believe they have very important role to play in an increasingly complex and uncertain (business) world.
How to detect multi-potential, atypical, intuitive and innovative profiles in the company?
Detecting atypicals, multipotentials, HPIs as talents can have a huge impact on all the level of the organisation of an efficient and
innovative firm. BUT, it’s not an easy thing to detect them because those criteria aren’t included in typical HR recruitment process.
Main misconception about them is that they’re brilliant, self-confident, ambitious and successful in everything.
By the time you finish working with me, you will have all the tools you need to impact HPIs to help manage responsibilities, and to maximise the impact of their major contribution to the business in our VUCA (* Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity & Ambiguity) world of today.
These “out-of-the box” personality may have a gift, even genius in one or more fields and lack it in others. The majority of them (2/3) aren’t aware of their potential, don’t recognise themselves and aren’t recognised by others as talented and having potential to offer. Even more, their career and education level can be far below their capacities. With their atypical character, disruptive spirit and high energy level, some of them seem like unmanageable “free electrons” in the eyes of HR person too strictly focused on process and following the rules. Sometimes, they exercised in many trades and have double or triple competence.
In fact, very often, misunderstood and rejected by majority, they suffer from burn-out, bore-our and brown-out. They’re victims of mobbing and someone’s envy and jealousy. They can also suffer in silence from lack of meaning, lack of self-expression and autonomy, injustice and lack of righteousness that surround them.
The truth is they’re very demanding with themselves and self-driven: intrinsic motivation in action. They like to deal with complex problems, having ability to detect flaws and nuance, possessing sense of service for others and responsibility to make change happen. They come with totally innovative ideas, exceptional vision and intuition, a remarkable curiosity and openness, and the ability for constant renewal. Some have a special sense of humour, or a developed sense of aesthetics combined with pursuit for excellence….If you read about Giorgio Armani or Steve Jobs at work, you’ll understand better…
One thing is sure, the way we treat them today, WE AREN’T USING THEIR GREAT CAPACITIES.
I hope to contribute, with GiftedLab’s Strength-Based Career Consulting Services and Workshops that their status change for the better.
As much as integrating gifted is challenging for the education system, this is also a big challenge for the business world. The HPIs can be tricky to manage. The selection of high potentials is not piece of cake because their character traits can be extremely variable and unrecognizable if using traditional HR hiring tools.
Gifted myself, I know a lot about HPIs at work. With me you will learn, effective communication techniques to accelerate and guide development of HPIs.
Strengths-Based Assessment Process Description
I have a series of methodologies/online tools to suit different contexts and challenges.
I work most of the time with Strengths Profile but use other existing online Strengths-Based Assessments that reveal your themes of talents.
I organise 1-to-1 consulting sessions of Strengths-Based Career Consulting for Gifted, Talented and 2e Individuals, a powerful way to fully understand challenges, uniqueness of the strengths profile and how to implement short and long term solutions in
the context of their life.
I also do small-group workshops, very useful because of the synergy of different people and their unique point of view that offer measurable added value and larger perspective of your strengths profile.
A whole process is composed of three to four in-person or video meetings.
Each meeting is one hour long including review of test results from online assessments and my personal, written and oral feedback.
Session 1
Getting to know a person, his/her needs, online assessments prescription (what is the best for him/her to choose as assessment).
Session 2
Session where we analyse together the results of online chosen strengths-based approach assessments.
Session 3
We chose one project or goal and we work together to see how individual’s strengths can dial up to his /her success. After that, we chose some strategies how to compensate weaknesses always reframing one person’s gifts. I help you find one or more things that can be motivating for you or employee to hold on to and willingly participate in these strategies.
These strengths (gifts) can be applied at home, in the classroom, at work, and out in the world.
Session 4
In this phase, we take into account the environment and potential triggers when crafting our action plan. Managers of HPIs/Gifted gain tools to work successfully with gifted professionals and the Gifted/HPIs make plan how to put their strengths into action.
Here’s what I won’t do
I see myself as strengths practitioner who does not “mold” my clients but rather can create optimal conditions for growth and
development.
I can’t tell you what you should do exactly. I can only give you some hypothesis that come out as conclusion of sessions.
Strengths-based assessments and sessions are meant to open a new perspective to you in unlocking your potentials or your
employees’ talents.
How do I get started?
I will need to speak with you to see if my services are the right approach for you.
Once we have spoken briefly by phone and have agreed to meet, I will ask you to create an account and
submit online payment at least one day in advance.
Meetings are available in person, or via phone or videoconferencing.
What will it cost?
For Individual Sessions, 50 euros an hour + cost for online assessments
(depend how many of the assessments need to be
done) for professionals.
For Team Consulting Sessions,
the price is to be discussed separately. For more information, please contact me.
Find out how to make a better use of your potentials/ gifts:
Creative Strengths-Based Coaching 1-to-1 Sessions
Find out how to explore your career perspectives through creative strengths-based coaching 1-to-1 sessions:
I offer individualised, flexible, tailor-made coaching, selected according the needs of the coachee. I’m certified facilitator in the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology and Co-Creation Specialist. I adapt the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology to propose Creative Strengths-Based 1-to-1 Coaching Session.
Creative Strengths-Based coaching is for any individual wishing to challenge themselves in a secure and explorative environment. It’s also adapted to the rapid and abundant thinking of “atypicals” and gifted. I create an innovative and fun sessions to allow young school children, students, professionals in activity and those looking for a job to find or develop project /career path that suits them.
Session starts from the potential of each individual, highlights their motivations, their values, their qualities as the basis of their career/professional project. It’s a succession of few meetings between the coach and the coachee, over sessions of 2 hours, spaced from 15 days to 1 month.
Contact Me for a Tailor-Made Quote ➤ See Clients Testimonials ➤Hide not your talents, they for use were made,
what’s a sundial in the shade?
Benjamin Franklin