新视界 (New Vision)

Let’s learn some­thing about self asse­ssment and how to exp­ress it.
For­ward from: http://careerplanning.about.com/cs/aboutassessment/a/assess_overview.htm

The most common que­stion I’m asked is this one: “I don’t know what I want to do. Is there a test or some­thing that can tell me what career is right for me?” The answer is no. You can’t take a test that will, as if by magic, tell you what to do with the rest of your life. You can however use a combi­na­tion of self asse­ssment tools that will aid you in your deci­sion. This arti­cle will demystify the self asse­ssment phase of the career plan­ning pro­cess. First I will tell you what self asse­ssment is and then I will give you an overview of the various tools used to help you learn about yourself.

Self asse­ssment is the first step of the career plan­ning pro­cess. During a self asse­ssment you gather info­r­ma­tion about you­r­self in order to make an info­r­med career deci­sion. A self asse­ssment should include a look at the follo­wing: values, inte­re­sts, per­so­na­lity, and skills.

• Values: the things that are impo­r­tant to you, like achieve­ment, sta­tus, and autonomy
• Inte­re­sts: what you enjoy doing, i.e. pla­ying golf, taking long walks, hanging out with friends
• Per­so­na­lity: a person’s indivi­dual traits, motiva­tio­nal drives, needs, and attitudes
• Ski­lls: the activi­ties you are good at, such as wri­ting, compu­ter pro­g­ra­mming, teaching

Many peo­ple choose to hire a career coun­se­lor who will admi­ni­ster a variety of self asse­ssment inven­to­ries. What follows is a discu­ssion of the diffe­rent types of tools you may encoun­ter, as well as some other things to con­si­der when pur­suing a career change.

Value Inven­to­ries

Your values are possi­bly the most impo­r­tant thing to con­si­der when you’re choo­sing an occu­pa­tion. If you don’t take your values into account when plan­ning your career, there’s a good chance you’ll dislike your work and the­re­fore not succeed in it. For exa­mple, someone who needs to have auto­nomy in his work would not be happy in a job where every action is deci­ded by someone else.

There are two types of values: int­rin­sic and ext­rin­sic. Int­rin­sic values are rela­ted to the work itself and what it con­t­ri­bu­tes to society. Ext­rin­sic values include exter­nal fea­tu­res, such as physi­cal setting and ear­ning poten­tial. Value inven­to­ries will ask you to answer que­stions like the following:

• Is a high salary impo­r­tant to you?
• Is it impo­r­tant for your work to invo­lve inte­ra­cting with people?
• Is it impo­r­tant for your work to make a con­t­ri­bu­tion to society?
• Is having a pre­sti­gious job impo­r­tant for you?

During a self asse­ssment, a career coun­se­lor may admi­ni­ster one of the follo­wing value inven­to­ries: Min­ne­sota Impo­r­tance Que­stion­naire (MIQ), Survey of Inter­per­so­nal Values (SIV), or Tempe­ra­ment and Values Inven­tory (TVI). If you want to get a feel for what you’ll be asked, take a look at the Work-Related Values Asse­ssment, which is a prin­ta­ble list of work rela­ted values, with a defi­ni­tion of each one.

Read More About Work Values

Inte­rest Inventories

Inte­rest inven­to­ries are also fre­quen­tly used in career plan­ning. When you complete an inte­rest inven­tory you are asked to answer a series of que­stions rega­r­ding your (sur­p­rise) inte­re­sts. E.K. Strong, Jr. pio­nee­red the deve­lo­pment of inte­rest inven­to­ries. He found, through data he gathe­red about people’s likes and disli­kes of a variety of activi­ties, obje­cts, and types of per­sons, that peo­ple in the same career (and sati­sfied in that career) had simi­lar inte­re­sts. Dr. John Holland and others provi­ded a system of matching inte­re­sts with one or more of six types: rea­li­stic, inve­sti­ga­tive, arti­stic, social, enter­p­ri­sing, and conven­tio­nal. He then matched these types with occu­pa­tions. The resu­lts of your inte­rest inven­tory are compa­red against the resu­lts of this study to see where you fit in — are your inte­re­sts simi­lar to those of a police offi­cer or to those of an accountant?

A very popu­lar inte­rest inven­tory is the Strong Inte­rest Inven­tory (SII), for­merly known as the Strong-Campbell Inte­rest Inven­tory. The SII is admi­ni­ste­red by a career deve­lo­pment pro­fe­ssio­nal, who also sco­res it, and inter­p­rets the results.

If you want to try using an inte­rest inven­tory on your own, a low cost option is the Self-Directed Sea­rch (SDS), by John Holland. You can take it online for a small fee. After comple­ting the asse­ssment, you will receive a prin­ta­ble report con­tai­ning a list of occu­pa­tions that most clo­sely match your interests.

Per­so­na­lity Inventories

Many per­so­na­lity inven­to­ries used in career plan­ning are based on a theory by psycho­lo­gist Carl Jung. Jung divi­ded peo­ple into eight per­so­na­lity types — ext­roverts, int­roverts, thin­king, fee­ling, sen­sing, intui­tive, judging, and per­ce­ptive. Career coun­se­lors often use resu­lts from tests based on Jungian Per­so­na­lity Theory to help clients choose careers. Career coun­se­lors con­tend that those of a par­ti­cu­lar per­so­na­lity type are better sui­ted to cer­tain careers. An obvious exa­mple would be that an int­rovert would not do well in a career that requi­res public spea­king. However, a per­so­na­lity inven­tory alone shouldn’t be used to pre­dict whe­ther you would succeed in a par­ti­cu­lar career. It should be used in con­jun­ction with other inven­to­ries, such as those that look at inte­re­sts and values.

Career deve­lo­pment pra­cti­tio­ners fre­quen­tly admi­ni­ster the Myers-Briggs Type Indi­ca­tor (MBTI) for the asse­ssment of per­so­na­lity. It mea­su­res diffe­ren­ces in traits between indivi­duals. It looks at how one ener­gi­zes (Extrover­sion vs. Introver­sion), per­ceives info­r­ma­tion (Sensing vs. iNtui­tion), makes deci­sions (Thin­king vs. Feeling), and demon­st­ra­tes his or her life­style (Judging vs. Perceiving). When the test is sco­red, the indivi­dual is given a four letter code, i.e. ENFJ (Ext­rover­sion Intui­tive Fee­ling Judging), indi­ca­ting his or her pre­fe­ren­ces. Each pre­fe­rence is also assi­g­ned a number to show how strong that pre­fe­rence is.

Ski­lls Assessment

When deci­ding what field to enter, you need to deter­mine what ski­lls you have. You should look at what you’re good at, as well as what you enjoy doing. You may be very adept at a par­ti­cu­lar skill, but despise every second you spend using it. Gene­ra­lly spea­king, though, you usua­lly enjoy what you do well.

While you’re asse­ssing your ski­lls, you should also con­si­der the time you are willing to spend on acqui­ring more advan­ced or new ski­lls. A que­stion you could ask you­r­self is this — if a career holds all the qua­li­ties I find appea­ling but it takes X years to pre­pare for it, would I be willing and able to make this time commitment?

Computer-Assisted Career Gui­dance Assessments

There are seve­ral compu­ter pro­g­rams that can help you with self asse­ssment. Pro­g­rams like SIGI 3 (System of Inte­ra­ctive Gui­dance and Info­r­ma­tion) and Discover require users to answer a variety of que­stions about inte­re­sts, ski­lls, and values. Based on those answers, the software comes up with a list of career the user may be inte­re­sted in. There’s a compo­nent that allows users to gather info­r­ma­tion about these careers. Computer-Assisted Career Gui­dance pro­g­rams are often found in career cen­ters at high schools or colle­ges. Some job and career cen­ters at public lib­ra­ries also make these pro­g­rams avai­la­ble.

Addi­tio­nal Considerations

When going through the self asse­ssment pro­cess it’s impo­r­tant to take into account other con­si­de­ra­tions that will influence your career choice. For exa­mple, you should con­si­der your family respon­si­bi­li­ties and your abi­lity to pay for edu­ca­tion or trai­ning. You also have to reme­mber that self asse­ssment is the first step in the career plan­ning pro­cess, not the last. After comple­ting this phase, you have to go on to the next one, which entails explo­ring the options you have before you. With your self asse­ssment resu­lts in mind, you will have to next eva­luate a variety of occu­pa­tions to see if there’s a match. Just because your self asse­ssment indi­ca­tes that a par­ti­cu­lar occu­pa­tion is sui­ta­ble for someone with your inte­re­sts, ski­lls, and values, it doesn’t mean it is best for you. Simi­la­rly, just because your self asse­ssment doesn’t indi­cate that a par­ti­cu­lar occu­pa­tion is app­ro­p­riate for you, it doesn’t mean you should discount it enti­rely. You just need to do some resea­rch to learn more about it.