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Engaging with a song that moves your client emotionally can reveal surprising insights about their interests, values and passions

Herky Cutler

If I asked you to name something that crosses generational, cultural, political and spiritual boundaries, moves people emotionally, changes moods, inspires people to be better, creates community, brings light to social injustice and simply entertains, what would you say that thing was?

Literature? Perhaps. Chocolate? A definite possibility. Music? Of course! Music is a powerful medium that everyone can relate to, and everyone uses music in many ways in their life. So, why not use music in career development?

Driving engagement through song

A long time ago, I wrestled with how to bring my passion for music into my professional life as an organizational consultant, speaker and trainer. And then it hit me.

What are we, as career practitioners, really looking for when we use assessments with our clients? Yes, we need the basic information from a client in terms of demographics, work experience, education and current situation. But what we really want is to get to know them – what they want out of life, what excites them and what dreams they have.

To find the answers, we would probably turn to an assessment tool – usually one we paid for – that measures employability, personality or occupational compatibility. All of these tools have merit. For me though, they lack what I consider to be the key in any relationship where one of the primary goals is change: engagement. If we don’t engage our clients deeply, how can we really help them change?

I’ll never forget my experience teaching a career course as a high school guidance counsellor, using a computer-based career interest inventory with students. I would ask a student, “What question did you just answer?” “Huh?” was the usual response.

The students weren’t engaged with this tool; they were just using it as a means to an end. Music, on the other hand, is highly engaging. I decided to put my theory to the test with some of the students who worked for me. I developed the following technique. 

From theory to practice  

The first person I tried this exercise with was a 16-year-old high school student I’ll call Will. Will was struggling in school, did a lot of drugs and showed real interest only in music, skiing and spending time with his friends. He brought in the song “Needle and the Damage Done,” by Neil Young. Will felt that the song was about social justice, conformity and rebellion. Through our discussion, many of Will’s characteristics, values and passions jumped out at me, including:  

• Non-conformist
• Risk-taker
• Leader
• Creative
  

While this exercise didn’t point Will toward a specific occupation, I suggested he reference the list I created when considering what types of work might make him happy.

How to use music as a career development assessment tool

Step 1: Ask your client to bring in a song that moves them emotionally. It can’t be just a song that they like. It has to move them deeply in some way. Instrumentals are fine, too.

Step 2: Find a video for the song and watch it together.

Step 3: Print a copy of the lyrics and have a conversation about them, asking a variety of questions. I have a list of general questions I ask in addition to others that pop into my head as we have the conversation. Some examples are:

• Why did you choose this song?
• What does this song mean to you?
• What do you think the writer is trying to say about him/herself or about the world?
• How does this song move you?

Step 4: While your client is answering the questions, make notes about their interests, values and passions.

Step 5: Once all the questions have been answered, go over your notes with the client. Ask them if what you wrote resonates with them. Ask them if there are any surprises and what those are. Once the discussion is over, hand the client your notes.

Tips

• Make no judgment about the song the client brings in, even if it contains inappropriate images or language, unless you’re working with a group of people and you feel the song may offend others. If that’s the case, ask the client to choose another song.

• Don’t share what you know about the song if it’s familiar to you, especially if you think the client’s interpretation of the song is “wrong.” It doesn’t matter. What matters is the impact the song has on the client.

• When you’re making notes about the client’s interests, values and passions, make sure you use their words, not yours. Accuracy is very important in assessment. If you’re using your interpretation of what the client is saying, and not what the client is actually saying, it may not be accurate.

• When you hand the client your notes, emphasize that what you wrote down cannot then be translated into determining an occupational path for the client. However, it’s fair to encourage the client to use those notes whenever they find themselves researching occupations or working. Does the occupation or job reflect the things that are important to the client, which he/she articulated from the analysis of the song?

• This technique is another tool to add to your collection. It may not be appropriate for all of your clients, but if you feel your client is willing to take a bit of a risk, ask if they want to give it a try.
  

Conclusion 

If you try this technique and your experience is like mine, you’ll be amazed at how engaged your client is in this process. Remember, this activity is client-driven; you will be talking about music that is important to the client, not evaluating answers to a career interest inventory they may have difficulty understanding the purpose of.

In my opinion, our goal as career practitioners is to help the client discover who they are and help them articulate their interests, values and passions. We should do so in a way that engages them and helps build a strong relationship between practitioner and client.

Music has the capacity to do this because of its universal appeal and its ability to trigger deep and meaningful emotions within us. Try using music as a career development assessment tool and discover just how powerful it really is. 

Herky Cutler is a Certified Career Development Professional, a lifetime member of the Career Development Association of Alberta and has been training career practitioners for more than 12 years. He has developed a number of unique career development tools and is a popular keynote speaker and presenter at conferences all over North America.

Brock University’s integration of gamification and assessment has helped students discover new insights about themselves

Marisa Brown

We didn’t start out with a comprehensive plan to gamify assessments with our students at Brock University. It just sort of happened.

We knew we wanted to increase student engagement in their career planning. We also wanted students to critically assess their own strengths, skills, competencies, work values, interests and other key elements in the career development process. Providing students with alternatives to traditional, formal assessments as part of their career journey was also a priority – we wanted them to have fun.

Around the same time, we invested in training a staff member in LEGO® Serious Play® – Methods & Materials facilitation. We were also considering how to incorporate images, mind maps and systems to support design thinking in our work with students.

What does it mean to ‘gamify’ assessments?

CERIC’s Glossary of Career Development defines self-assessment as the process of evaluating one’s own abilities, skills, values, interests and characteristics (CERIC and the Canadian Council for Career Development, n.d.). In the post-secondary context, this can be extended to students and the process of self-reflection in career discovery, career decision-making and career readiness.

Gamification in assessments means applying principles of game theory. According to Kapp and Coné (2012) – leaders in applying gamification within a learning context – a well-designed game involves abstract thinking, interactivity and is defined by a structure or set of rules. Players work toward a tangible outcome and the process may also elicit an emotional response as they strive to attain the goal. At Brock, we have aligned gamification principles to self-assessment by using a variety of tools to encourage abstract thinking and interactivity with the end goal of students discovering new insights about themselves and their career path.

Gamification at Brock University

Brock University has integrated LEGO® Serious Play®, mind mapping and SparkPath Challenge Cards into its career development toolkit.

LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP)

We use LSP with students as a tool for self-assessing strengths, values and skills. Our career consultants facilitate this process in a structured manner while also offering opportunities for abstract thinking (as in Kapp and Coné’s definition of gaming).

LSP is a facilitated technique that is grounded in four main phases: present the challenge, build a model reflecting the challenge (ie, add meaning to the LEGO® bricks), share and reflect. This process is repeated several times through a LSP session, resulting in deeper discussion and connection to the main topic or challenge. At Brock, we have facilitated LSP sessions in relation to skills identification, interview preparation, professionalism training and reflection.

For example, in a recent interview-preparation workshop, we used LSP as a strength-based self-assessment tool. We asked students to construct a model of their strengths, skills or “superpowers.” In doing so, students analyzed their own abilities and made connections to how their strength translated in a work or academic setting. Reflecting on their strengths through LSP helps students develop answers to interview questions such as “tell me about yourself” and “what is your greatest strength?”

Students are often surprised at how the LSP process leads to generating new insights about their own strengths while also having fun “playing” with LEGO® bricks. They get genuinely excited about sharing their models with other students and feel more confident in expressing their strengths (than if they were to have done so without building their models first).

Students have also commented that they did not see themselves as creative until participating in LSP. They began to see themselves as creative thinkers through the process of building with the bricks. Students also expressed that they appreciated the opportunity to assess their current strengths in relation to career, rather than skills that they may use someday or have used in the past.

Through LSP, students engage in a continual reflection process and are more connected to the outcome – a physical LEGO® metaphor that they personally created. This complex, involved process can be more impactful than relying on a generated list of strengths or skills that is often a result of completing a more traditional assessment.

Read more about assessments and training opportunities on CERIC’s CareerWise website:

8 free career assessment tools to help clients find their fit

Courses career professionals can take in summer 2019

Mind maps 

We also use mind maps as a way for students to identify and self-assess skills and competencies. Through a guided process, students create mind maps of skills they have developed through experiential learning activities (including co-curricular and curricular learning experiences) related to specific courses, program areas or career pathways. They engage in abstract thinking by literally drawing connections from experiences to skills in new ways.

This process of skill self-assessment also offers an opportunity for students to identify potential gaps and areas for further growth (if they are unable to identify experiences related to specific skills in their discipline or career focus). Students have commented on how the mind-map exercise offers “a-ha” moments for them when sharing their maps with colleagues and telling the stories of how they have developed certain skills.

Tangible outcomes include the mind map, answers to interview questions, ideas for career decision-making and goal-setting.

SparkPath Challenge Cards

Another informal self-assessment tool we have been using to engage students in career discovery is SparkPath Challenge Cards. Each Challenge Card set contains 30 visually appealing cards representing challenges in the future of work in health care, technology, society, environment and the economy.

Our career consultants use the Challenge Cards in one-on-one coaching sessions to engage students in conversations about career options, areas of interest, likes/dislikes and values. This approach focuses on students identifying challenges, problems and opportunities (shifting away from a focus on specific jobs). Through the guided process, students prioritize areas of interest and are encouraged to self-assess and reflect on personal and professional values. By interacting in the process and “playing” with the cards, students develop an action plan for next steps in their career planning.

These tools align with our philosophy of career development at Brock. We provide students with the tools to be successful in a self-directed process. Our career development model is grounded in John Krumboltz’s (2008) planned happenstance theory and Jim Bright and Robert Pryor’s (2003) chaos theory of career development. We encourage students to be flexible and take manageable risks while also asking for help and staying organized through the process. By inviting students to actively participate in the self-assessments of mind-mapping, building metaphors through LEGO® Serious Play® and Challenge Cards, they engage more fully in their own career decision-making. Students are engaged in the process of learning and developing their own narrative, which, according to Kapp and Coné, are critical elements of gamification.

Where we go from here

Our next steps include evaluating how impactful these activities are three months out and also in the longer term. We will be investigating how students are applying these concepts in future career and professional decision-making and how the tools have supported their career journey and self-exploration.

Marisa Brown is a Career Curriculum Specialist with Co-op, Career & Experiential Education at Brock University. She is a LEGO® Serious Play® – Methods & Materials facilitator, career development practitioner and holds a Master of Education – Teaching, Learning & Development.

References

CERIC & the Canadian Council for Career Development (n.d.). Glossary of Career Development. Retrieved from ceric.ca/glossary-of-career-development

Kapp, K. & Coné, J. (2012). What every chief learning officer needs to know about games and gamification learning. Institute for Interactive Technologies. Retrieved from karlkapp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/clo_gamification.pdf

Krumboltz, J. D. (2008). The Happenstance Learning Theory. Journal of Career Assessment, 17(2), 135–154. doi:10.1177/1069072708328861

Pryor, R. G. L., & Bright, J. (2003). The Chaos Theory of Careers. Australian Journal of Career Development, 12(3), 12–20. doi: 10.1177/103841620301200304

Waggoner, D.R., Martin, S.J., Eads, J.L., & Branson, R.D. (Feb 2019). Using an Escape Room as Gameful Training with Students. NACE Journal. Retrieved from naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/using-an-escape-room-as-gameful-training-with-students/

In turning the assessment lens on myself, I learned more about my own career journey, these tools and how I will use them with my clients

Stephanie Warner

As career practitioners, we work with a variety of tools and techniques to serve our clients, including assessments.

I work primarily with graduate students, who tend to struggle when it comes to identifying future plans, despite their years spent pursuing a specialized field of study. Like all of us, students change over time; their values, interests, skills and ambitions evolve. I use assessments as a tool to help them dive into the exploration process and build self-knowledge.

Three years ago, I was considering my own strengths and priorities as I embarked on a significant career transition. After spending most of my adult life studying and working in scientific research (not always happily), I applied to a job at the University of Calgary’s Career Services office.

In this time, I have learned how to use assessments to help clients in their career exploration. But, I wondered, what might I learn about these tools – and my own career journey – if I applied them to my own life? So, I recently turned the assessment lens on myself, trying out some new tools as well as revisiting my past assessment results with a more practiced eye. Here is what I learned.

CliftonStrengths

$19.99 USD

This assessment is designed with positive psychology in mind and provides users with their top five talent themes, from a list of 34. It was the first assessment I did when starting as a career advisor, and some theme descriptions didn’t immediately resonate with me (Input, Analytical – Is this test trying to tell me I’m boring and nerdy?). Chances are, I reacted this way because I had previously seen these talents as weaknesses.

Revisiting my results with a colleague reinforced for me the benefits of debriefing with a career practitioner whenever possible. This allows the client to describe the strength in their own words and identify action items they are motivated to address. Using the targeted language of the Strengths Insight Report often resonates more strongly.

VIA Character Strengths

Free

I breezed through this character strengths activity. VIA provides a rank-ordered list of all 24 character strengths, which I appreciated. Once again, I found that my first instinct was to read into the language literally, and had to urge myself to really read the description. For example, “judgment” may sound negative, but the description is “Thinking things through and examining them from all sides; not jumping to conclusions; being able to change one’s mind in light of evidence; weighing all evidence fairly.” Although the descriptions were short, they aligned well with information gleaned from other assessments. I found this congruence satisfying.

Knowdell Card Sorts – Career Values

$19.95 CAD

Values are the core principles that help us answer the question, “what is important to me?” For those who are more tactile, the Knowdell Card Sorts – Career Values cards may be a good option.

This tool evaluated elements that the other assessment tools didn’t directly address: my needs, motivators and purpose. I organized the cards bearing values descriptions into five categories, from “Always Important” to “Never Important.” Discussion around what each value means to me, how I would prioritize it and how it will shape my career decisions was satisfying and empowering. I found helping others and exercising competence make me feel satisfied, while competition is stressful. No wonder I enjoy working with students more than I did competing to publish.

Strong Interest Inventory

Approx. $40 CAD plus certified practitioner time

This assessment seems to really get me and is always a hit with clients. It provides more tangible career options based on one’s pattern of likes and dislikes. My own results fit extremely well with my recent career changes. Reviewing my results with a certified practitioner, I came out as an investigative, social, artistic mix – interests often associated with careers in teaching and university administration. It is important to note that students often find the results surprising if they don’t know what a given career is, or if they have pre-conceived notions about the value or attractiveness of the given occupation.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

Approx. $50 CAD plus certified practitioner time

MBTI can be a challenging assessment to interpret with an individual, due to its dichotomous choices. They may initially feel frustrated with what can seem like rigidity at a surface level. I balked at the different results that arose compared to when I had last taken it, at the age of 16. Luckily, this time around I used the MBTI Step II report, which breaks each preference into five facets, and debriefed with a certified career practitioner. My Step II results showed that, for example, my facets were equally distributed between the S and N type, which helped me to relax about which “bin” I was in overall and identify characteristics that resonated with me.

Read more about assessments and training opportunities on CERIC’s CareerWise website:

8 free career assessment tools to help clients find their fit

Courses career professionals can take in summer 2019

What has this experience taught me?

In taking these five assessments, I picked up some first-hand experience that will shape conversations with my clients and how I administer assessments to have the most benefit to them. Here are a few of my observations from this experience: 

• It’s important to define concrete questions before doing the assessment and revisit them at the end. When I checked in with myself after completing the assessments, I was then able to ask, “did this answer my questions?” and “what will I take forward?” Following this process with my clients allows us to address any unresolved concerns or discuss areas that still aren’t clear from the results.
• First impressions can be hard to overcome. I found myself jumping to conclusions about the language or dismissing certain options based on my previously held beliefs. Having a career practitioner present to ask some key questions (eg, “Tell me more about what this means to you” and “Why do you think this option showed up in your assessment?) allowed me to move past my gut reaction and explore the possibilities.
  

• Assessments are a great starting point. They provide positive language, opportunities for reflection, even options for careers. Many clients use assessments for self-discovery, but many that I work with also find that the assessments simply validate and reinforce ideas that they already hold about themselves or their prospects. However, they should not be taken as a directive. While most assessments incorporate an opportunity for self-reflection prior to delivering the reported results, the objective, research-based nature of the formal assessment often seems to carry more weight with the client. It is important that the student critically evaluate their results and not just take them at face value.

My results were consistent overall. Together, they painted a more complete picture than any one assessment individually. Using this variety of assessments, I feel more confident about the value of some of my more practical and analytical traits, especially when I can apply them in a people-centred world. The results align better with my current role than my last; I only wish I had invested the time in doing this sooner.

Stephanie Warner holds a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Experimental Medicine from the University of British Columbia. She is now the PhD Career Development Specialist in Career Services at the University of Calgary and also moonlights as a private career consultant and sessional instructor.

Exploring why career practitioners use assessments, as well as how they can select the appropriate tools and effectively interpret client results

JoAnn Harris-Bowlsbey

A version of this article also appears in the 2019 Summer issue of Career Developments, the National Career Development Association print magazine.

Assessment has played an important role in career guidance since its beginning in the early 20th century. According to the Joint Committee on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing of the AERA, APA and NCME (Joint Committee on Testing Practices, 2004), the definition of assessment is “Any systematic method of obtaining information from tests and other sources, used to draw inferences about characteristics of people, objects, or programs.” This article uses the term “career guidance” to refer to interventions with young people and adults related to educational and vocational choices. The purpose of the article is to review with career development facilitators and counsellors the purposes, options and guidelines for use of assessment in career guidance and counselling.

Purposes of assessment

It is possible to view the plethora of assessment instruments available in our field in three categories: a) those that support career exploration, b) those that identify career development needs, and c) those that measure accomplishment in areas related to educational or career development goals. Let’s look at each of those separately.

The purpose of the first segment of assessments available in our field is to help individuals find focus for exploration. This segment includes inventories of interests, skills, work-related values and personality characteristics. The number of occupational options is vast, with 974 groups of occupations defined in O*NET (the National Occupational Classification [NOC] system categorizes jobs in Canada), each of which can be broken down into many more defined occupations. The National Career Cluster Framework (Advance CTE, 2019) defines 16 industry-related clusters, which can be divided into 79 groups called pathways.

To find focus for exploration

The Holland classification system (Holland, 1997) defines six work environments, under which hundreds of occupations are categorized by educational levels in the Dictionary of Holland Occupational Codes (Goddfredson & Holland, 1996). It is impossible for individuals seeking to choose an occupation to learn about all of these options. Thus, one very valuable use of assessment inventories is to find focus for exploration.

ACT’s World-of-Work Map (Prediger, 1981) arranges hundreds of occupations by Holland work environments and 26 Career Areas. There are assessments whose results direct individuals’ focus to options in each of these four organizational schemes, allowing them to identify groups of occupations that align with their interests, skills, values and/or personality traits. Career explorers can then identify specific occupations they are interested in and “reality test” (using Donald Super’s term) this manageable set by reading, job shadowing, course work, etc.

To identify career decision-making and development needs

Though it sounds easy to administer an interest inventory, interpret it and shepherd career decision-makers through exploratory interventions, a significant proportion of career explorers have intrapersonal challenges that need to be removed before they are able to follow a logical process to a well-informed choice. Theorists define these barriers differently. Super (1957) describes a poor self-concept or the lack of completing specific development tasks as barriers. Krumboltz (1991) focuses on negative career beliefs. Sampson and his colleagues (1996) refer to negative career thoughts. Dinklage (1968) emphasizes ineffective decision-making styles.

The assessment tools in this category measure such intrapersonal challenges. The results may be used to work with individuals on specific identified problems or, for example, to assign members of a career planning course to different levels and kinds of intervention.

To measure progress in desired learning or attitudes

Similarly, such assessments may be used for research or for program evaluation. For example, a measure of career decidedness may be administered to two matched groups: one that has not had a course in career planning and one that has had such a course. The hypothesis is that the group that has completed the career-planning course will have a higher mean score on career decidedness than the group that did not have the course. Such an assessment could also be used with one group prior to taking the career-planning course and again afterward. The goal in this case would be to measure change in specific career attitudes or behaviours triggered by the content of the course.

Assessments of this kind can also be used to measure the attainment of skills, such as behavioural skills or academic skills. After individuals receive training and retake such tests, an increase in these skills can be measured. Similarly, students’ achievement toward mastering specific standards or goals can be measured by instruments in this category.

Types of assessments

Assessment tools in our field are typically divided into two categories: formal and informal. Formal assessments have these characteristics: a) their content, specific items, scoring algorithms and score reports are developed with scientific rigour; b) this fact results in the publisher being able to state their reliability and validity; and c) the combination of the first two makes it possible to compare the score of an individual to that of another or with those of a group with a high degree of scientific accuracy.

On the other hand, these characteristics – scientific rigour, known reliability and validity, and capability for comparison with others – are not central to informal assessments. They are tools such as card sorts, checklists, career fantasies, questionnaires and structured interviews. They own a legitimate space in our field and are used skillfully by many counsellors. They cost far less to develop and acquire, and they can be administered with far less advance planning.

Scientific rigour includes the careful completion of tasks such as the following:

• Clearly defining what is to be measured
• Clearly defining the component parts of what is being measured
• Developing items that measure the component parts
• Testing these items with members of the target population and modifying or replacing those that do not function well
• Choosing a norm group that mirrors the target population for which the assessment is developed
• Developing norms for various ages or grade levels
• Designing score reports that can be readily understood by counsellors and those who took the assessment

Methods of administering assessments

Informal assessments are typically administered by a counsellor or career development facilitator face-to-face in an office or classroom setting. For example, students or clients are asked to sort a set of cards, each of which contains the description of a value, into three stacks: those that “highly appeal to me,” those that are “somewhat appealing” and those that “I’d like to avoid.” In a different setting, a counsellor or career development facilitator may ask students in a career planning class to relax, close their eyes and imagine an ideal day at work – its location, work tasks, co-workers, degree of independence, length, concomitant lifestyle, etc. In yet another approach, a counsellor who has detailed knowledge of Holland’s theory may conduct a structured interview around the six work environments. In each of these cases, a trained counsellor is able to help a student or client draw inferences from the informal assessment that sheds light on potential career choices or changes.

Formal assessments are administered in print or digital forms. If they are standard tests in print form with right or wrong answers, they are administered under controlled conditions usually involving standard instructions, specified time limits, security of testing materials and test monitors. Such tests may also be administered in a computer lab, requiring that individuals prove their identity to access items that are delivered through a secure website. Some achievement or aptitude tests are adaptive, meaning that the computer selects items at increasing levels of difficulty until it finds the examinee’s general level of knowledge and then presents items only at that level. This type of test varies both in items used and in length of testing for different students.

Technology has revolutionized assessment in many ways, offering capabilities such as the following: adaptive testing; the use of videos, graphics and audio; administration to large numbers of people nationwide at their selected time; immediate scoring; online personalized interpretation of results; electronic transfer of results to counsellors; and the ability to easily share results, where appropriate.

Read more about assessments and training opportunities on CERIC’s CareerWise website:

8 free career assessment tools to help clients find their fit

Courses career professionals can take in summer 2019

Guidelines for selecting assessments

Following are some guidelines that may be helpful when selecting assessments to use with clients or students:

• Define clearly what you want to measure and why. Possibilities for what you want to measure could include interests, skills, aptitudes, personality traits, values, academic achievement, learning style, decision-making style and self-efficacy, to name a few. Reasons for measuring these might include to design career guidance interventions for individuals or groups of individuals, to define segments of your target population to receive different sets of interventions, to measure the effectiveness of your program, to determine whether students have achieved the goals set forth in a specific set of standards, etc.
• Develop a list of assessments designed to measure what you want to measure. Using a resource such as NCDA’s publication, A Counselor’s Guide to Career Assessment (Wood & Hays, 2019) will be invaluable. It describes assessments designed for various purposes and the 7th edition uniquely gives you online access to expert reviews in order to make an informed choice.
• Gather as much information as you can about the assessments you have identified. It is essential for you to determine whether each assessment has been developed and tested with individuals like those in your target population. For each, learn about its reliability, validity and theoretical base. Take the assessment yourself and administer it to a few students/clients. Study its score report to see if it is presented in a language and with graphics that will make it understandable to your population. Talk to or read reviews from counsellors who have used the assessment. Importantly, determine if the results of the assessment are compatible with other components of your program. For example, if your school’s occupational information is organized by Holland work environments, use an interest inventory that provides results by Holland types. Last, but certainly not least, assess the quality of the publisher. This involves the credibility of the author, the professional reputation of the publisher, the training offered to assure that the assessment is administered and interpreted properly, and the quality of customer service provided.
• Determine its practicality for your setting. This criterion includes how the assessment is administered (print or electronic) and scored, how counsellors can get training, length and requirements of administration, and cost.

Guidelines for interpreting assessment

Here are some guidelines for providing interpretation:

• Provide interpretation as soon as possible after students or clients have taken an assessment. Begin interpretation by reviewing why the person took the assessment and what it was like (eg, “you responded to 60 items by selecting one of five answers – like very much, like, neutral, dislike, dislike very much”). If true, be sure to indicate that there are no “right” or “wrong” answers.
• Provide the score report to the examinee and explain each section simply and in detail. If you conduct interpretation in a group, use an attractive PowerPoint presentation with a sample score report that students/clients see while having their own report in front of them.
• Provide an opportunity to students/clients to ask questions, and try to make sure you answer all questions immediately or within a reasonable timeframe.
• Be sure that you apply the results on the score report to the specific career concerns that the student or client is facing at the moment. This, of course, is the real reason for having taken the assessment. Its interpretation should be used to guide course selection, the tentative selection of an occupation or job, or whatever career concern the student or client has brought forward or your program of services is attempting to support.

Summary

This article has provided a general overview of the purposes of assessment, types of assessment, methods of administration, and guidelines for selecting and interpreting assessments. Understanding these concepts is just the beginning of preparation for informed use of assessments in career counselling and guidance. In-depth investigation of the effectiveness of specific assessments in various work settings and with members of various populations is essential.

JoAnn Harris-Bowlsbey, EdD, (bowlsbeyj@kuder.com) is an international authority in the areas of career development and counselling and a pioneer in the development and use of computer and web-based career planning systems. She has served as a high school director of guidance, university professor, career counsellor, executive director of the ACT Educational Technology Center, vice-president for development at Kuder, Inc., and president of the National Career Development Association. Dr Harris-Bowlsbey is the author of numerous print-based curricular materials, is widely published in academic journals and texts, and has delivered hundreds of workshops to counsellors at conferences and universities around the globe. She is the author of numerous versions of web-based career planning systems, of curricula for training of career development facilitators, and co-author of a leading textbook for the training of master’s level counsellors.

References

Advance CTE. (2019). National career clusters framework. Silver Spring, MD: Author.

Dinklage, L.B. (1968), Decision strategies of adolescents. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Goddfredson, G.D. & Holland, J.L. (1996). The dictionary of Holland occupational codes. Odessa, FL. Psychological Assessment Resources.

Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: a theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3^rd edition). Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Joint Committee on Testing Practices (2004). Code of fair testing practices. Washington, D.C.: Author.

Krumboltz, J.D. (1991). The Career Beliefs Inventory. Menlo Park, CA: Mind Garden, Inc.

Prediger, D. P. (1981). Aid for mapping occupations and interests: A graphic for vocational guidance and research. Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 30, 21-36.

Sampson, J.P., Petersen, G.W., Lenz, J.G., Reardon, R.C., & Saunders, D.E. (1996). Career Thoughts Inventory. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

Super, D. E. (1957). The psychology of careers. New York, NY: Harper.

Wood, C. & Hays, D.G. (2019). A counselor’s guide to career assessment instruments. Broken Arrow, OK: National Career Development Association.

While qualitative assessments can serve as fun and interesting activities, they should still be held to the same standards as their quantitative counterparts

Mary McMahon and Mark Watson

Career assessment has a long history in career development, dating back to the time of Frank Parsons’ (1909) work in the early 20th century. The purpose of career assessment is to assist clients with career exploration and self-exploration. Since Parsons’ time, career assessment has progressed in two strands that are distinct and divergent, despite their potential complementarity (Bright & Pryor, 2007; Brott, 2004). The first strand is statistically based quantitative career assessment, which has dominated career development practice and is evident in the many assessment instruments and inventories that assess personal traits. The second strand, qualitative career assessment (also evident in Parsons’ work), has largely lived in the shadows of its quantitative counterpart. Described as informal, flexible, open-ended, holistic, non-statistical and non-standardized (McMahon, Watson & Lee, 2019; Okocha, 1998; Palladino Schultheiss, 2005), qualitative career assessment is eminently compatible with the recent trend toward narrative career counselling because of its focus on storytelling and meaning making (Savickas, 2000). Despite a long history and the publication of the first book to specifically focus on qualitative career assessment (McMahon & Watson, 2015), it still faces the challenges of not being well understood and its development being widely regarded as less rigorous than quantitative career assessment. With these two challenges in mind, this article overviews qualitative career assessment and presents suggestions for its development and use.

The qualitative career assessment dilemma

Most career development practitioners can name card sorts, genograms and lifelines as examples of qualitative career assessment instruments. Fewer, however, can provide a succinct explanation of qualitative career assessment. Similarly, the career literature reveals inconsistent terminology related to qualitative career assessment (e.g. qualitative approach, qualitative measure, creative approach; informal assessment; “idiographic tools” [Brott, 2015, p. 32]) and a range of explanations as to what exactly it is (Gysbers, 2006; McMahon, in press; McMahon et al., 2019; Stebleton, 2007). This lack of definitional clarity poses a great challenge to qualitative career assessment and suggests the need for a consistent common definition. In a recent review, McMahon et al. (2019, p. 430) drew on a synthesis of definitions to offer a description of qualitative career assessment as “a structured qualitative instrument, technique or process that facilitates participant reflection” and advocated for more consistent use of the term qualitative career assessment rather than “catchy” synonyms.

Key features of qualitative career assessment instruments

A seeming lack of rigour is another challenge facing qualitative career assessment. While career practitioners may develop their own qualitative career assessment instruments, they should have a broader purpose than serving as fun and interesting activities to engage clients. McMahon, Patton, and Watson (2003) proposed suggestions for developing qualitative career assessment and outline steps in the development process as well as provide key features of qualitative career assessment instruments.

“Qualitative career assessment stimulates storytelling, and in doing so, facilitates learning about oneself through self-reflection and enhanced self-awareness.”

At the most fundamental level, qualitative career assessment needs a theoretical foundation. Theory guides practice and should influence the content and process of any assessment instrument. A set of clear, step-by-step instructions for clients should be a key feature of every qualitative assessment. These can help guide clients through a logical, sequential process of completing the assessment while simultaneously allowing flexibility for some clients. They also ensure that qualitative career assessment instruments can be completed in a reasonable timeframe, that they are holistic and that they include a debriefing process as a concluding step so that learning and meaning can be elicited. The step-by-step and debriefing processes encourage collaboration and co-operation between career practitioners and clients. For example, My System of Career Influences (McMahon, Patton & Watson, 2017; McMahon, Watson, & Patton, 2013) guides users through a structured process in a booklet format and the Motivated Skills Card Sort (Knowdell, 2005) provides a set of step by step instructions for users.

An essential step in developing qualitative career assessment is rigorously testing it. Testing will determine if it works and for whom, what benefits users derive from it and glitches that need to be overcome. To ensure rigour in evaluating qualitative career assessments, career practitioners and researchers should:

• underpin their research with a theoretical framework;
• consider the research sample;
• use culturally valid research methods;
• apply appropriate criteria for reliability and validity or trustworthiness; and
• consider ethical issues (McMahon et al., 2019).

Documenting these points in written reports of the research for publication will enhance rigour.

Qualitative assessments in practice

So, what exactly does qualitative career assessment mean for career counselling? Qualitative career assessment complements narrative career counselling because both share similar philosophical and theoretical bases, actively involve clients in the process and encourage reflection (Brott, 2004; Savickas, 2000). Qualitative career assessment stimulates storytelling, and in doing so, facilitates learning about oneself through self-reflection and enhanced self-awareness. For career practitioners, the use of qualitative career assessment in their practice will mean placing greater emphasis on the practitioner-client relationship and collaborative engagement with clients in the selection, administration and interpretation of assessment (McMahon, in press). The use of qualitative career assessment may be negotiated with clients which encourages client agency in the career counselling process. Consequently, career practitioners are required to relinquish “expert” status and embrace curiosity, inquiry, listening and observation (McMahon, in press).

For some career practitioners, using qualitative career assessment may be daunting. However, some simple guidelines are available (McMahon & Patton, 2002).

1. Consider the client’s needs and the information gathered from the stories they have told.
2. In view of this background, if appropriate, identify a qualitative career assessment instrument that may be helpful to the client. Explain how the assessment works and why you think it will be helpful to them.
3. Ask the client if they wish to participate and respect their decision.
4. Work collaboratively through the qualitative career assessment with the client and support them.
5. At the conclusion of the qualitative career assessment, debrief the process with the client to elicit learning and meaning and seek feedback from them.

By following these simple steps, the use and type of qualitative career assessment will be determined on the basis of client need rather than career practitioner preference.

Concluding thoughts

Qualitative career assessment has a lot to offer career practitioners and clients. So does quantitative career assessment. In no way does this article suggest that one is better than the other. They are different and used for different purposes, although they can be used in complementary ways. In view of the trend toward narrative career counselling, qualitative career assessment is well positioned to strengthen its position. Practitioners and researchers are reminded, however, that to do so may require the use of consistent terminology and also demonstrated rigour in research and practice.

Dr Mary McMahon is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She has researched and written extensively about qualitative career assessment and is a co-editor of the first book on qualitative career assessment.

Professor Mark Watson is an Honorary Professor at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, and a former Distinguished Professor at the Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He researches and writes in the field of career psychology and is a co-editor of a book on qualitative career assessment.

References

Bright, J. E. H., & Pryor, R. G. L. (2007). Chaotic careers assessment: How constructivist and psychometric techniques can be integrated into work and life decision making. Career Planning and Adult Development Journal, 23(2), 46-56.

Brott, P. E., (2004). Constructivist assessment in career counseling. Journal of Career Development, 30(3), 189-200

Gysbers, N. C. (2006). Using qualitative career assessments in career counselling with adults. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 6, 95-108.

Knowdell, R. L. (2005). Motivated Skills Card Sort. San Jose, CA: Career Research and Testing.

McMahon, M. (In press). Qualitative career assessment: A higher profile in the 21^st century? In J. Athanasou & H. Perera (Eds.), International handbook of career guidance (2^nd ed.).

McMahon, M., & Patton, W. (2002). Using qualitative assessment in career counselling. International Journal of Educational and Vocational Guidance, 2(1), 51-66.

McMahon, M., Patton, W., & Watson, M. (2003). Developing qualitative career assessment processes. The Career Development Quarterly, 51, 194-202.

McMahon, M., Patton, W., & Watson, M. (2017). The My System of Career Influences (MSCI – Adolescent): Reflecting on my career decisions. Brisbane, Australia: Australian Academic Press.

McMahon, M., & Watson, M. (2015). Career Assessment: Qualitative approaches. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

McMahon, M., Watson, M., & Lee, M. C. Y. (2019). Qualitative career assessment: A review and reconsideration. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 110 Part B, 420-432.

McMahon, M., Watson, M., & Patton, W. (2013). The My System of Career Influences Adult Version (MSCI Adult): A reflection process. Brisbane, Australia: Australian Academic Press.

Okocha, A. A. G. (1998). Using qualitative appraisal strategies in career counseling. Journal of Employment Counseling, 35, 151-159.

Palladino Schultheiss, D. E. (2005). Qualitative relational career assessment: A constructivist paradigm. Journal of Career Assessment, 13, 151-159.

Parsons, F. (1909). Choosing a vocation. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Savickas, M. L. (2000). Renovating the psychology of careers for the twenty-first century. In A. S. Collin & R. Young (Eds.), The future of career (pp. 53-68). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Stebleton, M. (2007). Career counseling With African immigrant college students: Theoretical approaches and implications for practice. The Career Development Quarterly, 55(4), 290-312.

Evaluations can offer insights into clients’ satisfaction and success

Peggy Shkuda

How can we measure our success as career counsellors and educators? No matter where we work, we all want to deliver excellent service, but measuring the outcome of individual sessions is not easy.

Many of us rely on our own intuition and experience to judge the success of our one-on-one sessions – an inherently biased assessment. We may believe we made an impact, but the client could think otherwise. For example, the client may be disappointed because we asked hard questions, challenged their views or did not provide an easy answer to their career concerns. Does that mean we did not do a good job? On the other hand, we may believe that the session did not go well, but the client took away an important insight that was not evident to us. Without proper metrics to evaluate our work, how do we know that we are facilitating growth or helping our client achieve his/her goals?

Using assessments to measure success

At the University of Toronto Mississauga, we use a two-pronged method: client evaluation and counsellor evaluation.

Client evaluation

Once a year, we ask students to evaluate their one-on-one sessions through client-satisfaction surveys. We have two different evaluations – one for first-time sessions and another for returning students. Generally, the results have been favourable, with most students indicating they were satisfied with the session, felt heard and would recommend the service to a friend. Some students said that the appointments could have been better if they had been more prepared. This indicated to us that students gained some insight into how their role influenced the outcome of the session. We continue to use this method of assessment, because we value the client’s perspective.

However, this method of evaluation does not always give us insight into how successful the client has been in addressing their concern. Client satisfaction and client success are not necessarily the same thing. For instance, a client may be very satisfied because we focused all our attention on them, actively listened and appeared genuinely engaged with their problems when no one else was. While a strong, non-judgmental client-counsellor relationship is important to the process, we also want to learn whether we were effective in helping the client move forward after their appointment.

Another concern is that annual or bi-annual evaluations tell only part of the story, capturing a moment in time. For initial appointments, much of the time is spent developing a positive rapport, gathering information and inquiring about the client’s goals. We may have been successful in developing a positive relationship, but haven’t really focused specific actions toward the goals; we’ve just begun to identify them.

Evaluations using longitudinal studies are another potential source of evidence-based information for one-on-one sessions. One way to do this would be to keep data on a variety of clients who seek career guidance and then track their sessions over an extended period. This type of study can take place over a period of weeks, months or years. At our Career Centre, we hold one-on-one appointments to go through evaluations with student staff at the start of their employment and at the end of their work term. The students also have access to follow-up appointments with a career counsellor. We noticed that career education, career decision-making, planning and confidence improved from the initial counselling session.

We have also tried this method with large numbers of students participating in a series of class workshops and have seen progression in self-clarity, comfort in making a career decision and knowledge of occupations. Interestingly, in some groups, we found a decrease in decisiveness on a specific career, which we hypothesized came from deeper exploration into self and occupations, resulting in students re-evaluating their career decisions. There are limitations to longitudinal studies, however, because students drop out, which means that the data collected may not always be reliable with a shrinking sample size. The data is still useful for observing trends that can be investigated further via focus groups or individual interviews.

Counsellor evaluation

The second method we have introduced is a self-reflection exercise that the counsellor completes immediately after the session. The exercise includes questions such as:

• Was I able to clarify what the presenting issue was in order to better understand the student?
• Were there aspects of the discussion that were difficult for the student?
• Were we able to find a common understanding of the issue/question that the student identified by the end of the session?
• How do I know this? What else could I have done to improve the discussion?

This type of self-reflection has the potential to be helpful because it creates a method for each counsellor to go beyond a gut reaction to a session by providing a guided set of challenging questions that forces us to reflect. The outcome of this two-pronged approach remains to be seen but I am hopeful that it will lead to positive outcomes for both counsellor and client.

Despite the limitations of any evaluation, they are worthwhile because it gives you some indication on how effective your service is. They may take you out of your comfort zone, but with a supportive leader and a great team, evaluations can be helpful to your professional growth. If you are in private practice, consider implementing evaluations so that you are not working in a vacuum. Regular evaluations can help improve service delivery and, in the end, benefit our clients. Isn’t that what we all want?

Peggy Shkuda has a Master of Education specializing in counselling psychology with a focus on career development. She is also a registered psychotherapist with 10 years of experience working as a career counsellor in the corporate and not-for-profit sectors. She currently works as a career counsellor at the University of Toronto Mississauga campus. Prior to that, she enjoyed a successful career as a TV documentary producer/director specializing in arts programming.

Discussing clients’ experiences, values, way of being and future possibilities can help deepen activate and deepen their awareness and perspective

Britt-Mari Sykes

In my career counselling practice, informal assessment strategies play a vital role in understanding what a client is experiencing, in discovering possible next steps and in harnessing personal agency.

Addressing the whole person – working with the multi-layered and specific contexts that are the reality of a client’s life – provides a more substantive, authentic and personalized foundation from which to help them work through career transitions. 

Career transitions are emotionally challenging

Career transitions can be emotionally challenging periods coupled with personal and financial stress. They can shake a client’s self-esteem and sometimes raise deeper existential questions of purpose, meaning and what constitutes a fulfilling career.

Career transitions are not always freely chosen. In such cases, clients can feel that they have no personal agency. They may feel frustrated at not having the freedom to make decisions about their lives.

“Career transitions are time-consuming, emotionally draining and require a lot of energy …”

Periods in our lives such as these can allow for reflection and re-assessment, resulting in new career directions. Transitions can, therefore, prove to be an enormously valuable and positive experience that leads to personal growth and development.

The process, pace and outcomes for each client are always individual and unique. As such, they demand a customized approach to assessing what is possible for a given client.

An experiential approach 

In my practice, I use an integrative and experiential approach. It is an approach to career counselling that takes into consideration the whole person.

An experiential approach:

• considers an individual’s varied experiences and the influence and impact those experiences have had, and continue to have, on how an individual navigates, shapes and contributes to their life and work;
• takes into account a client’s values and how those values shape personal definitions of meaningful work, purposeful careers, relationships and goals;
• respects and highlights an individual’s unique way of being, their personal experiential expertise and capacities;
• builds on what is possible for a client (this means merging a client’s aspirations and dreams with what is accessible and realistic); and
• looks at concurrent and overlapping issues that may impede or influence the direction and progress of a client’s desired outcome for career change. This includes a client’s access to – and inclusion in making – career choices.

Informal assessments – getting to the heart of a client’s experience

Informal assessments are vital to an integrative approach. They provide career development professionals (CDPs) with a more substantial understanding of what a client is experiencing and what is possible for them moving forward.

Informal assessments require open-ended conversation, active listening and a desire from the CDP to understand, rather than interpret, their client’s experience. Informal assessments necessitate exploratory questions that generate reflective exploration, deepened awareness and a shift in perspectives within clients; these are key to activating a client’s interest in engaging with new possibilities.

The following are some of the conversational areas I explore with clients to better understand what they are experiencing.

Individual context

Career transitions are often loaded with concurrent issues. Clients may also be contending with financial, familial, age-related or geographical considerations or worries. These can affect how a client is experiencing their life, their assumptions and beliefs about their skills and their ability to secure work, and the meaning career holds for them.

These contexts also influence how a client reacts to the transition, including their motivation and focus, and their resistance to or acceptance of change. A deeper understanding of a client’s unique context provides a wealth of information from which both counsellor and client can creatively co-construct what is possible and realistic for that client.

Acceptance

Accepting career transitions and change is often a difficult hurdle for many people. It is therefore important to discuss and elucidate the degree to which a client accepts their current situation.

A transition that is the result of a job loss deserves distinct acknowledgement. Supporting a client in expressing this loss helps them move toward accepting their current situation, which will free up emotional space and energy they can use to move in a new direction.

Motivation

Career transitions are time-consuming, emotionally draining and require a lot of energy to promote oneself and to navigate the change.

Understanding the shifts in a client’s motivation, openly discussing it and working with these fluctuations helps a client weather and manage the emotional waves that come with change. This deeper understanding allows for the discovery of personal resilience and illuminates personal attitudes toward their current situation and toward career generally.

Identity disruption

Many clients I have worked with have felt a profound disruption in their sense of self during career transition.

I have encountered clients who express tremendous fear or intractable resistance at the prospect of changing careers because of a perceived loss of identity. Others feel a transition or change will result in a loss of certain key capacities and skills associated with their identity.

Openly discussing identity and its relation to our work and careers can be beneficial in helping a client separate who they are from what they do in the work world. It can also help a client understand the fluid boundaries between the two.

Identifying a client’s “experiential expertise”

While our identities are certainly shaped and influenced to a degree by the work we engage in, we are always more than any one job. We are in fact continuously developing and accumulating a unique and individual experiential expertise.

Discovering, identifying and articulating a client’s experiential expertise is extremely helpful during periods of transition. Clients come to see the depth and expanse of their expertise from a broader perspective. They become able to differentiate a skill set associated with a job from a much more broadly acquired personal expertise, and to see that expertise as more flexible, valuable and transferable.

Taking a holistic approach

Informal assessment strategies work from a holistic perspective. They activate and deepen a client’s awareness and perspective. Clients thereby develop vital experiential muscles that help them access personal agency and identify what is possible. Helping clients to create the navigational tools that are personally appropriate to step through a career transition successfully is the goal.

Britt-Mari Sykes, PhD, is an integrative career counsellor with an extensive background in existential and humanistic psychotherapies, career counselling and teaching. She is the author of Questioning Psychological Health and Well-Being (2010), a historical and contemporary examination of the meaning of psychological health and development. She is currently working on her second book, a collection of essays on education and career from an Existential Analytic perspective. Based in Ottawa, Sykes works remotely with a diverse global clientele, helping them to create personally empowered solutions to career transition, burnout and the building of meaningful careers. brittmarisykes.ca, brittmari@brittmarisykes.ca