A Career Assessment Test is one way of going about your job search. But how do these career assessment tests really work and do they work as advertised?
2. You’re after your dream job but
can’t quite put your finger on what
job that is??
Hey, computers seem intelligent these days.
Maybe they can find it for me?
7. First some background..........
Most of the more popular career
assessment tests are based on
the theory of John Holland who
created 6 personality types
9. People JobsPersonality
Types
The basic theory is....
‘If you have a personality type similar to
people of a particular job type then that
job type will probably be a good match for
you’
10. Let’s dive deeper into the most
popular career assessment test
The Strong Interest Inventory (SII)
11. 291 Questions
For each question you must choose
one of five responses
Strongly Dislike
Dislike
Indifferent
Like
Strongly like
12. 260 Occupations
Well, effectively only 130 as they split male and female jobs
People in each occupation
have also taken the 291
questionnaire to build up
a profile of responses for
each particular
occupation
13. In order to participate, people from each
occupation must meet 3 criteria
•They could not indicate any degree of
dissatisfaction with their work.
•They must have had at least three years of
experience on the job.
•They must have been at least 18 years of
age.
14. So...
If your answers to the 291
questions are somewhat similar to
those answers from people in a
specific occupation then given that
these people are not dissatisfied
with their occupation and have been
in that occupation for over 3 years
then there is a good chance that
you will also find a decent level of
satisfaction in the same occupation.
16. Errr.....Excuse me please. Just a few questions ?
1. How happy are these people that took the
questionnaire with their occupations?
2. Who are these people that took the questionnaire
for specific occupations?
3. Of all the people that took the questionnaire for
a given occupation, surely they couldn’t have
answered the 291 questions in the same manner?
4. If they didn’t answer the questions in the same
manner then how is ‘an occupation’ defined in
terms of responses to the 291 questions?
17. 1. How happy are these people that took the
questionnaire with their occupations?
No idea. All we know is
that they have been in
their occupation for over
three years and have not
expressed dissatisfaction
with that occupation.
18. 2. Who are these people that took the
questionnaire for specific occupations?
The Strong Interest Inventory Manual
Supplement provides details on the
number of people (who took the
questionnaire) for each occupation, the
year the data was collected, the
average age of those taking the survey
and the average number of years that
people had been in that particular
occupation
20. 3. Of all the people that took the questionnaire
for a given occupation, surely they couldn’t
have answered the 291 questions in the same
manner?
They didn’t. However, what is
interesting is that there are
some definitive patterns of
answers for people in the same
occupation. This brings us to
the 4th question.
21. 4. If they didn’t answer the questions in the
same manner then how is ‘an occupation’
defined in terms of responses to the 291
questions?
Essentially the responses of people in a
specific occupation are compared with
responses from those of a general sample
(called the General Representative Sample
– currently consists of 2250 individuals).
The way in which the responses differ for
those in the specific occupation is deemed
to be characteristic of that occupation
23. How do you evaluate the
effectiveness of such a career
assessment test ?
24. Let’s find a bunch of people who took
the test and then chose an occupation
based on that test and find out whether
they are still in that occupation and how
satisfied they are with it?
26. The effectiveness is usually measured by
testing the ability to predict occupations
that people will eventually enter.
Simply put.....
Get people in certain occupations to take
the test and see if their occupation (or one
similar to it) gets the highest score.
27. Shawn Michael Miller (Dr of Philosophy,Washington State
University), looked at the history of this testing
A ‘Good Hit’ is when an individual’s current occupation
matched one of their three highest occupation scores (scoring
greater than 45 for that occupation)
A ‘Direct Match’ means that occupation scored on the
survey was ‘exactly’ the same as the person’s actual occupation.
An ‘Indirect Match’ required some inference by the
researcher (i.e. we can take that to mean that the occupation
scored on the survey was somewhat similar in definition to the
person’s actual occupation).
Some definitions to help.......
28. The results.....
So about 50% of the time the Strong Interest
Inventory (SII) did identify a person’s occupation (or
one similar to it) as one of the highest scoring
occupations for that person.
29. Summary.....
The top Career Assessment Tests have had a
significant amount of time, money and effort poured
into them over the years to make them as useful as
possible.
A career assessment test continues to be a valuable
asset in providing career guidance to individuals, but
it is important to understand exactly what you are
getting.
