CAREER PATH MANUAL by AMERICAN INSTITUTE 4566 Catalina Drive San Jose, CA 95129 __________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Disclaimer 2 ShareWare Ombudsman Program 2 ShareWare 2 Registration 3 ShareWare Distributors 3 Hardware Requirements 3 Installation Instructions 4 Technical Support 4 Operating Instructions 4 Required Files 6 Conclusion 6 INTRODUCTION Career Path is a comprehensive career selection and planning system designed to help you answer the questions "Who am I" and "What career would I like best?". Career Path will help you decide on the career that best suits you. Career Path prints out a seven page report that lists a composite of your interest, abilities, values, capacities, personality profile, along with IQ score, entrepreneur ability score, value inventory, and environmental value preference. Based on these factors, a customized list of 20 to 40 careers is provided from an initial data base of over 22,000 jobs. With the aid of the automatic evaluation form, this list of careers is further refined to the one or two careers that best corresponds to you as an individual. Advance Career Path Plus The advance Career Path Plus version will provide many addition tools and insight into helping you get the career that you will want. Career Path Plus will you answer the questions "How can I best get the career I want?" Career Path Plus will help you decide on the career and employer that best suits you, and will show you how best to land the job you want. After you have determined the career path you want to pursue through the help of Career Path, you will learn the best way to approach the market and how best to communicate with prospective employers. Career Path Plus will provide guidance in preparing customized resumes, cover letters, thank you letters, and will show you how best to prepare for interviews. DISCLAIMER American Institute has made extensive effort to assure the accuracy of the information provided, but because of the complexity of each individual, this product is sold "as is" and without warranties as to performance or content or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user must assume the complete responsibility for the use and interpretation of the information provided by this program. American Institute assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of this program. SHAREWARE OMBUDSMAN PROGRAM American Institute is an approved vendor and associate member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help. The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members' products. Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MI 49442-9427 USA, FAX 616-788-2765 or send a Compuserve message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536. SHAREWARE Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue using it, you are expected to register. Copyright laws apply to both Shareware and commercial software, and the copyright holder retains all rights. Shareware authors are accomplished programmers, just like commercial programmers. The main difference is in the method of distribution. Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. The Shareware system makes fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy. And because the overhead is low, prices are also lower. Shareware has the ultimate money-back guarantee, if you don't use the product, you don't pay for it. Career Path is a "shareware program" and is provided at no charge to the user for an evaluation period. Feel free to share it with your friends, but it may not be given away altered or as part of another system. The essence of "user-supported" software is to provide personal computer users with quality software without high prices, and yet to provide incentive for programmers to continue to develop new products. Page 2 REGISTRATION If you find this program useful, it should be registered. After a trial period, the license to use Career Path is withdrawn and it may not legally be used without first registering it. The $29 registration fee will license one copy for use on any one computer at any one time. This software may be moved from one computer location to another, so long as there is no possibility of it being used at one location while it's being used at another. In the same way that a book cannot be read by two different people at the same time, this program may not be used by two different people at the same time. Site-License arrangements may be made by contacting American Institute. You are encouraged to pass a copy of Career Path along to your friends for evaluation. Please encourage them to register their copy if they find it useful. All registered users will receive a copy of the latest version of the Career Path system. Registration A registration form (Register.Doc) may be easily printed by your word processor or you can print a registration form within Career Path. From the main opening menu, prepare your printer for printing and push F10. SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTORS Anyone distributing Career Path for any kind of remuneration must first contact American Institute for authorization. This authorization will be automatically granted to distributors recognized by the (ASP) and such distributors may begin offering Career Path immediately. However American Institute must still be advised so that the distributor can be kept up-to-date with the latest version of Career Path. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS Career Path requires: 1. IBM PC or compatible computer 2. DOS 3.x or later is recommended 3. A hard disk with 650K of available space 4. A minimum of 540K random access memory 5. Either a color or monochrome monitor Page 3 INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Career Path contains an installation file that automatically loads itself and has you up and running in about 60 seconds. HARD DISK Installation 1. Put the Career Path disk into disk driver A: or B:. If the drive is a 5 1/4", be sure to close the drive door. 2. Type either A: or B:, depending on the drive used, and then push the Enter key. 3. Type install then push the Enter key. 4. The first installation window will ask you if you want to continue with automatic installation. To continue, push the Enter key. The installation program will make a subdirectory called \CAREER on your C: drive, and will load all programs and files automatically into the subdirectory. Manual Installation For manual installation, create a subdirectory, copy Ins.exe to subdirectory, and run Ins.exe. Ins.exe is a self extracting program that will extract all programs and files. Run set_Util for the initial set-up of Career Path. TECHNICAL SUPPORT Technical support is available FREE of charge to registered owners for a period of 90 days after registering Career Path with: American Institute, 4566 Catalina Drive, San Jose, CA 95129 OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS Career Path is a very user friendly program that will quickly and easily guide you. Where additional help may be needed, help screens (F1) have been included. STARTING Career Path From the main or root directory of your C: drive, type in cd\career and push the Enter key to change to the subdirectory Career. To start Career Path, CAREER and push the Enter key. STARTING Career Path WITH WINDOWS Career Path may be run from Windows in the stand-alone mode. After starting Windows, select File, select Run, enter program path. C:\Career\Career To shift between programs in the Window environment, push the Shift key and the Esc Key together, then select the desired program. Remember, as Career Path is running in the stand-alone mode, if you push the Esc key from the main menu, you will terminate Career Path and have to start-over with File and Run to run it again. Note: The database will not load if you have insufficient memory available. Page 4 MAIN MENU BAR Career Path opens with the main menu bar. The menu choices are: Intro, Test & Report, Selecting Your Career, Getting Your Career, and Utilities. Either push the large red letter of your desired selection or use the left and right arrows to move the highlight bar to the desired selection and then push the Enter key. Additional selections are offered at the bottom of the screen. They are: Help-F1, Calender-F3, and Database-F5. Two additional selections that are not shown is Version-F9, and Print Registration Form-F10 (for unregistered version). The Esc key normally returns you from any section of the program to the main menu bar and will also exit Career Path with one additional push. The following is a short summary of each of the main menu bar selection options. Intro - Introduction A quick explanation of the steps to follow with Career Path for the best possible results. Test & Report Select this selection to take your personal interest survey. It is best to take this survey when you have a little more than one relaxed hour available and you are rested. After printing the survey results, the program will return you to the main menu bar. Selecting Your Career Simply follow the instructions and progress one item at a time down the submenu. The Weighted Career Evaluation section is the cumulative combination of all of the preceding sections. This section helps you narrow all listed career choices from the survey down to just one or two careers. From the weighted evaluation form, push the F8 key to customize the form. Enter a weighted figure of 1 (lowest) to (9 (highest) to indicate how important each of the 32 items is to you. The first six weighted figures are listed on page 6 of your written report. As these figures are based on a range of 0 to 100, you will need to divide the figures by 10 before entering them. Push Q to save your figures. These figures may be changed any time by pushing the F8 key again from the weighted evaluation form. the second part of the weighted evaluation form consists of entering a figure of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) based on your evaluation of how well the career satisfies each item. The weighted grand total is listed at the bottom of the screen. Repeat the valuation for each career that you want to evaluate. The higher the score, the better it matches your individual wants and needs. Getting Your Career (Active with advance registered version) After reviewing the section introduction, select the second item from the submenu to print needed forms. Continue selecting the submenu choices in the order presented. The database is used to keep track of whom you have contacted and who you still need to contact. Page 5 Utilities The utility screen has its own menu bar with the following selections. Help Help screen for utility selections Color Offers 40 color combination choices Explosion Speed Offers control of the rate that windows open (explode) and close. The new explosion rate will become effective after Accounting Helper is exited and reloaded. Scroll Speed Offers control of the rate that text scrolls when the arrow keys are being used within a window. REQUIRED FILES After installing Career Path, the following files should be in the c:\accthelp subdirectory. Career.exe Main Career Path program Career.bat Used to start Career Path from the root directory Insightd.* 5 different database files Ins*.r 6 Data files In*.frm 11 Form files In*.Ins 15 Instructional files Ins* 18 Character files Set_Util.exe Program to set Career Path's utilities Career.man This manual Readme.1st A short introduction/start-up requirement file Register.Doc Registration Form CONCLUSION We are always interested in improving out products, if you have any suggestions, please drop us a line with your comments and suggestions. American Institute 4566 Catalina Drive San Jose, CA 95129 If Career Path is of value to you, please register it. Thank you for letting us be of service. Page 6