Career Assessment Revolution - The Newer Science is Much Better!!
Feb 19, 2020
New Career Assessment Approach Explained My Frustration
I was struggling in guiding the company I sold in 2017, and it took almost 30 years to figure out why? The bottom line was that I was in the wrong career given the gifts that God had given me. Yes, I was good at math, economics and advising clients in my wealth management business. All looked pretty good, and I made a great living doing it. Unfortunately for my colleagues and some clients, I had tried for 25 years to merge psychology and money to create a money psychology practice instead of the fee-only financial planning firm everybody else thought we were. Later, I took a career assessment that finally explained my struggles. Ugh. If you are frustrated or dissatisfied in your career, or are a parent wanting your child to have the career God has designed them for, read on…
My Wife Was Painting, and I Was Reading
One day, my wife and I were sitting together while she painted, and I read. She nudged me and said, “Charlie, I’m having trouble with this part of my painting.” As a financial nerd, I felt I was poorly prepared to answer that question, but I gave it a try. I mentioned a few suggestions.
She then said, “That sounds pretty good. Here, try doing it,” as she passed her paint brush over my way.
I asked, “Nancy, are you serious? I’ll ruin it!”
“No, you won’t. It’s acrylic, so I can fix anything you mess up.”
I made the changes, and she said, “Huh. What do you think of this other part and how to improve it?” I started to make suggestions, but she stopped me and told me just do what I thought would help. I did, and she assessed my work. Then she leaned over, got a blank canvass to her right, handed it to me and said, “Paint a picture.”
“Nancy, I can’t paint.”
With her fiery red-head insistence, she said, “Well, you just did!!”
Well, I painted something out of my head and later took the painting to her teacher who was surprised at my first painting. Don’t get me wrong for I was no prodigy. There was plenty to fix. However, I’ve sold some paintings since then, but I’m keeping my day job. The best part is that Nancy and I have a new activity we can do together. I was age 55 years old at the time and had no idea I had an undeveloped artistic aptitude.
Older Science Versus the Newer – The Results
The older science has been focused on interests and self-reported skills with a little personality thrown in. The newer assessments focus on identifying aptitudes, developed or not, a client’s approach to work, with some interests thrown in at a very high level. Are there some tangible outcome differences to which we can point? You bet there are.
In a study by YouScience™ of 11,748 Georgia students, the aptitude-based approach was 1) 3.4 times more likely to send females to Key, In-Demand Industries and 2) 2.1 time more likely to send minorities to those jobs. In the same study using the top 50 Industry Career Recommendations, Interest-Based Surveys sent 86% to Social and Artistic Careers including Arts, Entertainment, Education, Life Sciences, etc. and 0% to the Economic In-Demand Careers including Engineering, IT Manufacturing, Logistics, etc. The Aptitude-Based results were 26% to the Social and Artistic Careers and 56% to the Economic In-Demand Careers.
WHY IS THIS???!!!!
17 and 18-year-olds have very little experience with industries, so their perspective on what is interesting to them is very limited. The same is somewhat true about the children’s parents. With Aptitude-Based assessments, the students can see what careers are best for them. Of the 10-20 careers they may be directed to, they can read about the average day in the life of a (fill in the blank) and what the Core Tasks of the job are. Then, and perhaps only then can they decide whether something is of interest to them or not. I have witnessed this with my clients.
Conclusion
There are other stats about how the status quo has hurt our children with their college major and career choices. For example, the status quo has also helped cause the average full-time student to take five years to complete college, usually changing majors five times. Loans are bigger and students wait longer to start making money to pay off the loans – or pay back parents.
We appeal to parents to help their children in better way. Whether you use our Aptitude-Based Career Assessment Process or someone else, everybody will be served well if our children and even mid-life crises adults can understand better what gifts God has given them and what career He has designed them for. It’s time to move up to 2020 technology.
Charlie Haines
