Career Assessments

What are Career Assessments ? For anyone, it can be a difficult choice deciding on a career path. Career assessments can help point individuals in the right direction. Career assessments are personality and/or ability assessments, which measure relevant traits and skills to determine how someone likes to view the world and react to different stimuli. The assessments are useful because they are a more objective and standard way of establishing how a person sees themselves. They also give an indication of where someone's capabilities lie, giving an idea of what they will be good at. Career assessments are very useful for personal development purposes to help someone gain an insight into their abilities and preferences to help them decide on possible career choices. They also give someone an idea of what to expect, if faced with assessments in a competitive scenario, which is something that various companies often utilize as part of the job selection process.

What Will You Gain From Doing This?

• An insight into your personality traits, interests, values and abilities, to provide clarity on career choices that would be suited to your preferred style
• Direction for the next stage of your life
• An awareness of your strengths in order to market yourself in your chosen career direction
• An appreciation of your weaknesses for further self development leading to improvement within yourself across different situations
• An understanding that career choice will be a logical decision making process after considering personality, interests, motivation/values and ability
• The opportunity to discuss any issues or queries with an independent professional

Areas of assessment:

The following main areas are considered in career assessments:

Personality type : The "Will Do" factors i.e. whether the person will use their intelligence to do the job effectively. This allows the person to gain an insight into how they will view the world, recognising that strength will also have a "flipside" which can be a weakness. In times of threat or anxiety we tend to revert to this preferred way of doing things, putting aside any learnt behaviour.

Interests : Can easily be determined by: hobbies, outside interests, achievements, personal network and academic success. If someone is interested in their chosen field they will always find the resources (time, energy etc.) to sustain their activity. It can help the person understand their work interests and to specify the kinds of work they might be comfortable in.

Work Values : Values deal with what drives the person. They are the energy and fuel, which transport the person to attain their goals. They are also important because potential conflicts are lessened if people share the same values. Results give an understanding of what motivates the individual and makes them feel fulfilled in their career e.g. fast pace, excitement, challenging problems, advancement, competition, or to help others.

Definitions of Career Success : What a person needs to have in a job to feel successful. It concerns those factors that people want to get out of a job e.g. salary, responsibility, recognition, teamwork, security, or to do something good for society.

Learning Capability : These give an indication of what individuals "Can Do" i.e. what sort of learning curve they have. There is also the option of individuals undertaking assessments for general or specific abilities, such as general problem solving, numerical, verbal, spatial, mechanical and diagrammatic. Over and above academic results and grades on previous courses, results on these assessments will give an indication of individuals' ability in relation to a comparison population, providing an idea of their skills to help narrow down a specific career direction.

Assessments Activities:

The following are all untimed assessments and ask you to indicate your own thoughts. There are no right or wrong answers, and the questions do not indicate ability.

• Personality type : These require you to answer various questions relating to your preferences.
• Interests : These ask you to respond how interested you are in different specific activities at work.
• Work Values : As a card sort exercise; you sort each value into categories depending on how often you seek these factors from your work.
• Definitions of Career Success : A list of success factors, you need to check which ones are important to you.
• Learning Capability : assessments are typically timed exercises that are completed by pen and paper. Questions cover different areas depending on the specific capability being assessed.