![]() ![]() I will never forget the test that included “butcher” and “bricklayer” in the list of recommended professions. Yet, many career assessments haven’t updated the list of careers they recommend in a long, long time. Career Recommendations from the 1800’sĪs many as 50% of the jobs posted on didn’t even exist 10 years ago. talking about land line telephones in a world of mobile smart phones) or the actual vocabulary used is unfamiliar. Either the question is out of context (i.e. As a result, many questions don’t make any sense to your average student today. While the test may still be valid, the language is rarely updated. Many career assessments have been in use for over 50 years. The next most important, predictive question should be the next to be asked at all times, thus allowing someone to stop the assessment part way through and see the results based on the current information given before moving on. Don’t ask essentially the same question 10 different ways or a question whose answer should be predictable based on answers to prior questions. Not Smart EnoughĮvery question I answer should better inform the next question to be asked. Users should able to finish some sort of basic test before deciding whether or not they want to continue with the more robust assessment for more accurate results. In most cases 20% of the questions are likely to predict 80% of the results. These assessments don’t need to be that long. Even if a student has the time and attention to complete an hour long test, test fatigue can easily set in after 20 minutes or so and risk the validity of the results. Who has time to sit through 150 - 300+ questions? This is one of the biggest deterrents for many students that might otherwise take an assessment and benefit from it. Rather than suggesting some poorly matched, highly abstract, academic careers in STEM, they could have been shown ones that properly leverage their technical strengths in ways that are interesting to them. ![]() ![]() Combining their strengths assessment with an interests inventory or alternative assessment that looked at their personality in a different way could have made a significant positive impact on their results. ![]() Take for example a student who has the temperament for STEM based on their strengths assessment, but hates math. None of them encompass all of those aspects of a person to come up with full picture of you as an individual and where you might best thrive. Each of these match you to a career based on that particular dimension. There are strengths assessments, interest inventories, values quizzes, etc. Many of those that have used very small sample sizes for this research or haven’t re-validated the assessment for many years to make sure it remains predictive with the current generation. Many career assessments out there have not done any sort of research to validate whether or not they are accurate in predicting the best matched careers. Having reviewed many of these assessments, I have noticed some common problems most of them share. These assessments can be a powerful tool to provide some guidance and direction to a student that is unsure of the type of career they want to pursue, but so many of them fall short in several different ways. There are many different career assessments and quizzes that exist today, but it is difficult to identify which is the best or most accurate. ![]()
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