Assessments Part 1: Interests
When we go to work we don’t magically become a different person. Sure, we have to follow workplace standards that we may not prefer (i.e pajamas in the office), but generally if you hate working with your hands, house DIY, etc. then working as a carpenter might not be ideal. You may be good at it, but if you find it uninteresting, it will be difficult to muster the motivation to work, let alone get better and thrive in your work. To identify what interests us, assessments can be very helpful.
The career counselling landscape is littered with assessments and training programs and there are no shortage of people willing to take your money. Everything included below is free of charge and are resources that I have used on myself and with clients. As a disclaimer, none of these assessments should be taken as the Harry Potter sorting-hat and definitively tell you how to live your life*. You are more complicated than any assessment. What assessments can do is give us language to better clarify ourselves as well as some ideas to contemplate. They can also be pieces of the puzzle to help us narrow down options.
As you go through the assessments, I recommend keeping notes. The Career Planner from the University of Manitoba (see page 6) is a good way to keep a record and guide self-reflection.
Holland Codes:
Image taken from University of San Diego (2022) https://www.sandiego.edu/news/detail.php?_focus=59253
John Holland was a psychologist who spent his life researching relationships between career choice and life satisfaction. John Hopkins University and Let’s Talk Science provides a summary of the theory that I encourage you to read before taking the assessment, but the gist of it is that we have 6 personality or interest types within us. They are Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional.
Though we possess all 6, we typically rate higher in some than others and our top 3 are described as our Holland Codes (and abbreviated to 3 letters). These apply to us in life both at and outside of work with the idea being that what interests and motivates you doesn’t suddenly change when you got to work.
John Holland interviewed lots of people and determined that certain people who were happy in their jobs aligned with certain Holland Codes. That does not mean that you can’t enjoy your job with a different Holland Code, but that often those with a different Holland Code may attempt to modify their work to better align with their interests.
My Next Move is a free web-based assessment tool based on the Holland Codes and offered by the U.S Department of Labour. Inventory. It provides you a Holland Code and a list of corresponding occupations. All labour market information is sources from the U.S
A note about answering the questions: The first question will ask you about your interest in building kitchen cabinets. Note that it’s not asking whether you know how to build a cabinet or build cabinets for a living. Think of whether you would be interested in completing the task in your free time.
Once you have finished the assessment, you will receive a Holland Code and have two more steps to complete:
1. Take time to review the Holland codes interests from John Hopkins and Let’s Talk science to see if these make sense based on what you score and if there are any key words that lined up for you. This is especially true if you had a tie between two of your highest scores to see which is higher.
If you disagree with some components of the assessment, that is okay. What is important is that you take time to self-reflect. Consider what parts of the Holland Code you agree with and disagree with. For myself, I score very high in Enterprising but hate selling. That’s okay, assessments should be there to help you understand and reflect, not tell you the future.
2. You will get a list of jobs across 5 category levels with the higher numbers associated with greater amounts of education. Look over the occupations and pick 3-5 that strike your interest and write them down
You can also look up occupations by Holland Code combination here. You may only want to select your top 2 Interests to get a bigger list.
Tanya’s Story: Taking the Interest Assessment, Tanya’s top three Holland Codes were Investigative-Conventional-Enterprising. She quickly identified with the Conventional aspects of following processes, being detail-oriented, and enjoying analyzing data. She also found the idea of learning and applying information engaging, though she did not like the idea of conducting experiments as this reminded her of chemistry labs that she disliked. While she did not describe herself as a leader, she like to persuade others using what she learned.
From the occupational list, she identified 5 jobs to research first:
Journalist
Policy Analyst
Lawyer
Forester
Environmental Economist
*For an accessible summary of the strengths and limitations of assessments, I recommend The Cult of Personality Testing by Annie Murphy Paul.