Career Assessments

I was excited to read about career and employment assessment this week because I feel as if I have some expertise in this area having worked for the Office of Experiential Learning and Career Management on campus since last fall. I also chose to review a career assessment for my testing presentation, so I have been especially immersed in the world of career services over the past week. I reviewed the MRP, which is a college and career planning system for high school students. We use a version of this program for high school students in our office called the FOCUS 2. Although I think the use of FOCUS is more widespread than the MRP, I found the MRP to be more easily accessible and to also contain more resources. The system also generates user reports and system-wide data so I think it is really useful for school counselors as they are having conversations with students and parents about their future plans and reporting school-wide data on student plans after graduation. I was also comforted by the fact that this system was developed from a strong research base, providing inventories based on Holland Codes and pulling in information from other assessments, such as the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, all of which are described in the text. I was happy to see that the text also included information about interviews as this is a very important part of the job assessment process. As mentioned in the book, we have heard that situational interviews are becoming very common, during which applicants have to describe ways in which they have responded to different incidents in their previous jobs. We have learned a technique for responding to these sorts of questions, called the STAR method, which students have found helpful. There are four steps, each associated with one letter in the acronym. First, describe the Situation or Task you needed to accomplish. Try to describe a specific event, not a generalized description and be sure to give enough detail so for the interviewer can understand. This situation can be from a previous job, a volunteer experience, or any relevant event. Then describe the Action you took and be sure to keep the focus on you. Even if you are discussing a group project or effort, describe what you did-not the efforts of the team. Don’t tell what you might do, tell what you did. Then describe the Results you achieved. What happened? How did the event end? What did you accomplish and/or learn? It may benefit the applicant to practice describing specific incidents using this method in advance of the interview. Although you may not know exactly what the interviewer will ask, you can have a good idea of questions that are asked in most interviews and can have certain responses prepared. Mock interviews can also help you determine how you may behave during a formal interview session. Belludi, Nagesh. (2008). “Use the Star Technique to Ace your Interview.” Right Attitudes Blog. Retrieved from http://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/07/15/star-technique-answer-interview-questions Drummond, R., and Jones, K. Assessment Procedures for Counselors and Helping Professionals. (2010). 7th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.