For the last several days I’ve been sharing “Career Discovery” Pointers….tools and techniques for uncovering your unique wiring with regard to talents, skills, passions, and personal qualities. So far I have primarily discussed Career Direction Question Sets and Career Direction Exercises. Next week I plan to begin reviewing a few formal assessments and instruments. These assessments and instruments have great potential value and also some limitations. First let’s look at the plus side.
Strength Assessments are used by thousands of employers as pre-interview and mid-interview screening devices. In the corporate world I served in for the last 16 years, assessments were standard operating procedure during the initial interview. Many companies have found them a boost to success in the marketplace with a corresponding tangible increase in revenue.
According to Dr. Charles Handler, author of Buyer’s Guide to Web-Based Screening & Assessment Systems, RadioShack increased their annual revenue by 12 million dollars a year when they added an assessment to their employment screening and interview process. When Neiman Marcus added assessment tools to their hiring process for sales people, their revenues went up and a costly turn-over rate went down.
If employers are using assessments to get the right people plugged into the right jobs, doesn’t it follow that you might also be able to use assessments to help you get plugged into the right job? If a company's revenue went up doesn’t it follow that your income might also go up with a job that is a better fit? And if their turnover rate went down, doesn’t it follow that your bouncing from job to job that doesn’t fit might be reduced as well?
So the first plus is that taking a good set of career assessments can help you get plugged into the right job, increase your income, and reduce the amount of time you spend moving between jobs.
As a secondary plus, taking assessments will get you comfortable with them. Since so many businesses are using them as part of the screening process, taking a few on your own will give you some comfort and confidence when you take theirs. In effect, it will serve as practice for part of the interview process.
A third plus is that an enlightened employer might in some cases re-direct and hire you for a job other than the one you initially applied for. I re-directed people on a number of occasions to other departments where we had openings.
A fourth value is that good assessments will give you some insight on how to do your current or future job the most effective way based on your strengths. It is a big misnomer that there is one best way to successfully accomplish a particular set of tasks and goals or carry out the roles of a specific job title. I have managed very successful sales reps in the same industry with vastly different strengths and corresponding methods that led to their successes.
A fifth value of a strength assessment is that it can give you insight on what you need to improve or develop. My strong bias based on years of observation and research may be counterintuitive for you. My bias is that you should be working almost exclusively on developing the areas that you are already very good or at least brimming with some natural ability. This is very countercultural for most of us who have been taught to work on our weaknesses.
A sixth value dovetails with the fifth. A good assessment can reinforce the areas that you should be delegating or outsourcing. And this goes way beyond the office. Richard Branson is one of the most gifted entrepreneurs on the planet today and probably of all time. In a Fortune Magazine article Richard tells how his finance guy only recently helped him to grasp the difference between net and gross income. He explained it in fishing terms something like this… “Imagine you catch a bunch fish in a net but some get away. The gross is what you originally caught. The net is what you ended keeping after some got away.” Richard was learning this 3rd or 4th grade level finance long after he had reached BILLIONAIRE status. Richard Branson is a phenomenal business person… but he obviously learned to delegate the financial part of business very early on. On the other hand he is a literal genius with marketing and the non-financial aspects of business start-up. He has further developed only what he was already naturally fantastic at and found trusted people to count his ample money.
As I said this goes beyond the office. I am lousy with yard work. When I bought my first new house there was a particular plant in my front yard that was growing rapidly and I thought looking quite good. Imagine my dismay when a friend came over and had to explain to me that my beautiful plant was Johnson Grass and would turn the rest of my yard into a weed infested mess if I didn’t get it out of there fast. Today I have wisely made the decision to allow Susy full freedom to run the yard in those areas that are fun for her. The physical stuff like mowing and pruning we outsource to a gifted gardener. My parents made this decision with housework and during some years cooking fairly young in life. It was a wise choice.
A seventh value continues to build on the last one. A good assessment can identify and reinforce some areas or tasks that don’t need to be done at. We sometimes hallucinate that everything we do actually has to be done. Well….probably not.
Now let’s quickly look at the limitations…
First, if you are looking for an assessment to tell you exactly what to do with your life you are in trouble. They should be viewed as suggestive or as I’ve said pointers in a general direction. Assessments can put some fresh ideas on the table that you would have never thought of on your own. I try to be very careful never to refer to these tools as a test! I call them assessments, indicators, and instruments.
Second, no assessment can recognize or measure the full breadth and mix of even one person’s make up. Actually only God is equipped for that task. I recommend taking 2 or 3 assessments each year and even repeating some that have proven particularly accurate and useful in the past. Different assessments are designed to measure different things so a variety of them can be most useful.
Make sure you run the results through your own screen of logic and self awareness. Run it by a few trusted friends and your spouse. Combine the results with their insight as well as what you have gathered from probing questions and exercises like the ones I’ve just shared. From all those sources you should begin to get an accurate composite of who you really are.
Lastly, you notice I mention God from time to time in my writing. I believe in a God who knows you intimately, created you, and to my point here, created you to be fulfilled when doing and accomplishing some very specific things He planned for your life. Why not ask Him for insight? I believe He will answer your prayer...and He may even use a good assessment to communicate that answer.
