So you want to better help your students in choosing their careers. As a step forward for your career counseling, you decide to use career exploration assessments for them. But hold up! Before you start developing or sourcing, here are 5 things you need to consider when using career assessments.
5 Things to Consider When Using Career Assessments
Career assessments are not “tests”
When using career assessments, you have to understand that while some people label them as “tests”, they’re not tests at all. The term “test” can imply on your students that there are right or wrong answers. Most career assessments don’t have those. It should reflect a student’s aptitude and interests accurately and not according to what they think is right.
Results are only suggestions
The results of career exploration assessments are only suggestions. It won’t tell the students which career they should pursue. Rather, it gives them ideas on which careers would best suit them based on their interests or their aptitude. According to the results of a student’s career assessment, they will know which path they should explore more.
Honesty is important
A career exploration assessment will only be effective if the people taking them will be honest about their answers. When using career assessments, it’s important that you remind your students that they stay true to their interests when answering. They should respond in terms of the way they actually are, not the way they hope to be or wish they could be.
Make sure the assessments are valid and reliable
One of the things most people hate about workforce assessments in the Philippines is the question of its validity and reliability. The same question applies to career assessments. There are many career tests available, especially online. But are they really helpful? If you’re planning on using career tests, be a smart consumer. Evaluate, validate, and test the reliability of the career test that you’re planning on using.
Understand results and guide students
After making your students take the assessments, what’s next? You should be able to understand the results and guide them with a counseling session. Usually, career assessment results are easy to understand. However, you can further help your students by reading between the lines of their results. For example, one of the career choices for a student happens to be something that they would usually dismiss. You can examine this more by looking into the skill sets or interests that they have from that result, and suggesting careers that call for similar interests and skills.
Career assessments have helped thousands of people in figuring out the next steps of their lives. The key is to make sure that the tests your students take are truly helpful and that you’ll be there to guide them.
People Dynamics offers the Profiles Career Keys (PCK) and the Profiles Academic Clusters (PAC), assessments that utilize our cutting-edge, job match technology for a well-informed career exploration and selection. These assessments suggest academic tracks, courses, and professions where a student is most likely to succeed in, where suggestions are based on the profiles of successful people in their respective fields and have similar abilities, interests, and work values. We also offer test development services, with the test battery depending on your requirements and desired outcome.
