The Benefits of Assessment Tools
/The first step to creating a new future is to make sense of what you’ve been through so far.
Career Assessments may not be for everyone. Nothing is. But they can be a very useful tool to bring into the process of defining what you want in your work life.
When you have a career problem, it helps to bring new things to the surface that you may not have been aware of. Maybe you want to better define what you are looking for and create a path towards that goal. You are looking for solutions.
Career Assessment tools are online tools that help you to explore your career interests, your personality and other aspects that all become part of answering those questions you have about what you’re looking for. In my work I offer MyFuture+ which are well-researched, adult-oriented tools from the Careers Portal platform.
My Future+ tools are freely available to all my clients
The benefit of a Career Assessment is that it can highlight to you that there is a suitable work environment that you are likely to find rewarding and satisfying. We are trying to find career options that are a good fit for you.
Here are some things to consider about assessment tools.
· The tools are realistic. They may not necessarily tell you what you want to hear but they will hopefully provide you with insight into what would be a satisfying career for you.
· The tools are self-reported. There should not be any major surprises here. Done right, the results should feel like a good alignment with the way you see yourself.
· The tools are not right or wrong or set in stone. Rather, they provide us with questions to consider.
· The tools should only be considered as a support to the career counselling process. They are an aid to decision-making, not an answer in themselves.
· Discussion with your career counsellor can help you to narrow down choices into careers that you would be both good at and passionate about.
Here are some of the assessment tools I use:
Interest Profiler – This tool identifies career categories and specific occupations that are interesting to you. By narrowing down a range of 8 interest areas to a top 3, and by thinking about which job sectors interest you the most, you start to think about how to combine these into satisfying work.
Example: A person works in construction but their Interest Profiler shows a strong interest in Investigative/ scientific work and STEM sectors (Science, Engineering and Construction). They start to consider options outside construction that build well on the career they have. They show an interest in Robotics and upskilling in Automated Systems.
Personality Quiz – What does personality mean to you? I see it as the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that make us unique. We use this quiz to explore your innate traits and how they relate to the work environment Certain job environment will allow certain personalities to flourish.
Example: A conscientious person will enjoy a stable, ordered environment, while an idealistic personality seeks meaning and purpose through their work.
Career Values – It can help to look at your life values and whether your career choices relate well to these. Do they align and bring satisfaction, or are they misaligned and lead to frustration?
Example: A person’s top career value is ‘peace of mind’ but they have worked as an Event Planner for five years. Seeing these side by side helps them to appreciate that their career choices do not relate well to their top values and that this is generating stress in their life.
Career Skills – This tool separates skills from academic achievement. It can help you to identify the skills that you have picked up through work, lifelong activities and friendships. It can also help you to identify those skills that you (perhaps secretly) most want to learn.
Example: A person rates themselves as highly skilled at presenting ideas and public speaking. This helps them to see that they would like to develop these skills further and become a trainer. They have more to offer. They also identify that they could learn practical task skills that would help with their new choice of career such as computer skills and working to deadline.
Multiple Intelligences – The theory behind this tool is that rather than a person having one intelligence pre-determined at birth, there are eight types of intelligence that we can grow and develop throughout life. This tool aims to connect people with their strongest intelligence areas and how they could apply that to their career search.
Example: A person’s top scoring intelligences are Intrapersonal (Self Smart) and Interpersonal (People Smart). They have been considering retraining as a psychotherapist and this reaffirms to them that it is a good fit and they are likely to enjoy it.
As a career counsellor, I believe assessment tools are a really useful tool. They can throw new light on a familiar situation.
They can provide you with language to describe what you are already experiencing. What you have learned about yourself. What skills you have to offer. What you want your future to look like.
They can offer you a portfolio of yourself that you can bring with you and incorporate into future plans. It can be motivating and gratifying to see yourself clearly described in black and white.
But it is the discussion they generate – and the decisions and plans that come out of that discussion - that is their greatest value. Learn from the past. Think of the future.
For more details on MyFuture+ see MyFuture+ | Irelands National Career Development Programme (careersportal.ie)
