Which Career Assessment is Right for You?

A career assessment is designed to help you understand more about one particular area of your personality as it relates to a career.  These particular areas are called ‘domains’.

There is a career assessment for each of them, in fact there are many which have been designed for each of the 4 main career domains.  Below is an outline of the 4 main career domains, examples of assessments in each category, and what these assessments can tell you:

Interests

– Common assessments:  Strong Interest Inventory, SDS, CEI, O*NET Career Interests Inventory, RIASEC Inventory

– Purpose: To identify careers around your personal interests, so you can put your skills to work in specific jobs within those fields of interest

Skills

– Common assessments:  Knowdell Card Sort, Transferable Skills Scale, Employability Skills Inventory, Skills Scan

– Purpose:  To identify your most developed skills, along with the ones you enjoy using most so you can identify functional areas and/or formulate a job title

Values

– Common assessments:  Kerwin Values Inventory, MIQ, O*NET Career Values Inventory, Work Motivation Scale

– Purpose:  To define what is important to you on the job, helping to shape work environments, personal work style and rewards needed from your workplace to maintain motivation and happiness

Personality

– Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator, Do What You Are, Career Personality Inventory

– Purpose:  To match personality types to careers, work styles, skills, work environments and work preferences

This list is not exhaustive, and there are other sub-domains to consider assessing.  These may include:

• Aptitudes
• Career Readiness/Employability
• Barriers to Education/Career Success
• Career Maturity
• Career Decision-Making
• Financial Literacy
• Interview Style
• Job Search Attitude/Knowledge

As you can see, there is no one assessment to find the answers needed to understand more about who you are, what you are capable of, what you might enjoy, and how to get your career started.  Before you take a career assessment, it’s really important to understand what you are trying to achieve, and how those results fit into your total career picture.

If you are interested in learning more about how a career assessment battery might work for you, please inquire or learn more about my assessments at www.julielacroix.com/career-assessments.  I’d love to hear from you!

Julie LaCroix, M.A.,  has a private practice in Newport Beach, CA,  which serves adults of all ages looking for help with how they got “stuck” in their careers.  Maybe it’s the wrong job, maybe it’s the wrong field altogether.  Or maybe you just don’t know what else is out there.  Her practice is designed to help you, wherever you are in your career journey. She earned a B.A. in Psychology from UCI and an M.A. in Educational Clinical Counseling from Azusa Pacific University.  Email Julie at www.julielacroix.com.