Help Guide Clients to Careers They Love

-Guest post from Mark Fitzsimmons, President of Psychometrics Canada and CPC Affiliate – 

Adding assessments to your practice will help you to assist clients to make the most informed and strategic decisions about their education and work journey.  Professional grade tools that measure personality, interests and values will enhance your service offering and lead to better client outcomes.

What are some of the advantages of using assessments with your clients?

1. Efficient Career Planning

Assessment results make it easier to create actionable career goals that align with personal strengths, interests and market demand.

2. Build Self-Awareness

Clarify interests, values, and strengths. Assessments help individuals understand what they enjoy, what they value in a work environment, and where their talents lie.

3. Provide your clients with objective data

Use evidence-based results to help guide their career choices. By filtering out incompatible paths, assessments help individuals focus on realistic and satisfying career opportunities.

4. Increased Confidence

Help validate choices, seeing assessment results that align with interests or aspirations builds client confidence. Having a clear path based on personal traits and data helps reduce the stress of not knowing what to do next.

5. Improved Job Fit

Helping someone find a career that aligns with their personality, values, and interests typically leads to better engagement, satisfaction, and success at work. People who are well-matched to their roles are more likely to stay and grow within their careers.

What career assessments should I be consider using with clients?

1. Measures of interest

For clients who are exploring educational options or a complete career shift, looking at interests is  a great place to start. An assessment that uses Hollands Codes (RIASEC) will help you to match interests to job environments and provide you with  a clear way to identify satisfying career paths for your client.

The RIASEC model divides jobs and interests into 6 categories:

• Realistic – hands-on, practical (e.g., mechanic, engineer)
• Investigative – analytical, intellectual (e.g., scientist, data analyst)
• Artistic – creative, expressive (e.g., designer, writer)
• Social – supportive, helping (e.g., teacher, counselor)
• Enterprising – persuasive, leadership (e.g., manager, entrepreneur)
• Conventional – detail-oriented, organized (e.g., accountant, administrator)

Consider: the Strong Interest Inventory or Career Interest Profiler

2. Measures of personality

Understanding personality helps your client match their personal style to an ideal work environment.  For example, some people are drawn to working independently, while others thrive in a team environment.  A job that requires a focus on details may not be a good fit for everyone.

Consider: the Myers-Briggs or  Work Personality Index

3. Examining Values

For midlife career changes,  values can be an especially powerful lens to  use with clients.  People’s values tend to shift at different stages of life as motivations and priorities change.

Intrinsic values are the personal satisfaction someone gets from the work itself.  These could show up as a desire for opportunities to be creative or be challenged intellectually.

Extrinsic values are the external rewards or outcomes a job provides.  How important is status, prestige, income or security for you client?

Interpersonal or altruistic values examine relationships and social impact. Does your client wish to help society and contribute the greater good? Be recognized publicly for their achievements?

Consider: the Career Values Scale

Enhance your professional career services by offering clients personalized insights from industry leading career assessments.  Career Professionals of Canada has negotiated a special offer to access online assessments from Psychometrics Canada.

Mark Fitzsimmons is President of Psychometrics Canada, a leader in pre-employment and talent management assessment. Psychometrics Canada works with thousands of clients across the country and around the world. Their suite of assessments provide professionals with the insights necessary to help their clients make the best career development decisions. The company represents some of the best assessments in the industry and is the Canadian source for the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Strong Interest Inventory.