How Assessments Can Help Guide Your Next Career Move

Is it time to reinvent, recalibrate or recharge your career?   

It’s hard to open yourself up to new opportunities if you feel stuck and unsure. But stuck is exactly what you might be feeling if you can’t figure out what you want, or what’s your best next career move.

Career assessment tools can reveal personality traits, strengths, tendencies and preferences that drive your decisions and actions — perhaps without your awareness.

As author Jonathan Raymond puts it, “You can't know what you don't know. You can't know about things you have yet to discover.”

Like a compass, assessments can help guide you in the right direction as you navigate your professional path. From personality tests to values and strengths inventories, assessments can help inform your career decisions by:

• prioritizing things you know (and didn’t know) are important to you;

• uncovering new ideas and possibilities you may never have considered;

• identifying ways for you to build on your strengths; and

• weaving everything together to plan your next steps.

What Can Assessments Reveal?

Who are you? How are you wired? What energizes you? These may sound like existential questions. But when you consider them in the context of your career, they become very practical questions to answer.

In working with our career coaching clients, we find that assessments are one of the most valuable tools in laying the foundation for career exploration.

Collectively, they can shed light on these five questions:

1. WHO are you?

You might think you know yourself pretty well. You probably do. But there may be some aspects you may not have looked at carefully.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality assessment (not a test!) that provides insight into not only the type of person you are, but how you make decisions, understand the world around you, where and how you get your energy, and more. It can help you learn what kinds of professions you might thrive in, what work environments you’re likely to feel most comfortable in, and how you might best contribute.

Used in 115 countries, available in 29 languages, it’s taken by millions of people worldwide. And that’s because it’s a great tool. It can suggest additional career directions you may not have considered, careers that people like you have found very satisfying. It can also validate the fit of a career you’re already in (or leaning toward). This can help you decide whether to make a change or not, and if so, how much.

You also may find satisfaction in a career that isn’t typical for your personality type, if you approach it in a slightly unorthodox way. Sometimes this can even make you a more appealing candidate for the position, depending on the industry.

2. WHAT’s interesting and meaningful to you?

Because you’ll spend an average of 90,000 hours at work during your lifetime, it’s important to enjoy what you do! If your job bores you or drains you of your energy, let’s face it: You’re going to be miserable.

One of the tools we use, the Strong Interest Inventory (SII) can help identify your interests in six broad categories, which are further broken down into 30 specific areas of interest. The report goes on to suggest several careers (and educational paths) that align with your interests.

3. WHERE can you compromise — and where can you not?

Most people think they can articulate their values … until they’ve reflected, clarified and prioritized them through assessments that measure them.

One of the values assessments we use with clients helps identify your top five values at work. In the context of your career, these are non-negotiable areas for you to keep top of mind. If you trade them in, at some point you’re likely to regret it. 

Let’s say one of your top three values is serving humanity. You’ll want to consider careers that improve the lives of other people. But that’s just one piece of the puzzle. What if making money also tops your list? Can you make both things work? How? That could become part of your follow-up research.

Identifying your core values is essential as you move to the next phase of your career exploration. As you conduct your online research and talk to people in that field, this new level of self-awareness becomes a marker for evaluating your career options.

(You might also enjoy reading our related blog post, What’s Your Why?)

4. WHEN is it appropriate to make a slight adjustment versus a major shift in your career?

If you’re at a career crossroads, assessments can help you determine which direction makes the most sense at this point in your professional path. As they help you zero in on what’s misaligned in your current situation, you can better gauge how tolerable or intolerable it is.

Now isn’t always the right time to make a significant career change. You might decide that it’s best to continue in your role while you research other, better-aligned opportunities or embark on further training.

It’s possible that you love what you do, but you need a different environment to do it in — or want to take your career to a new level, as one of our clients did in the following example:

After working for several years as a nurse, “Chris” decided that he no longer wanted to focus on direct daily patient care. He was a very talented nurse, vigorous in his commitment to best practices, quality assurance, compliance and record-keeping. Based on his interests, personality and values, we came up with a plan to pivot that felt right. By upgrading a few key leadership/management skills and certifications, he became a QA/compliance leader for a large healthcare system and is happy with the outcome.

5. HOW can you put the puzzle pieces together to consider the right career move?

No single assessment can come close to defining you. The choices you make along your career path are based on a multitude of factors, including your personality, strengths, interests, values as well as your education, background, experience, aspirations and goals.

Taking assessments through a certified and trained professional allows you to incorporate the results in a strategic manner. When our clients take the MBTI and Strong Interest Inventory together, we can access and discuss a 23-page combined report that includes the top 10 careers that could be a fit … along with many other options to consider. This report provides a solid foundation for launching the career exploration process.

Assessments suggest possible career paths you might find satisfying. But if you’re looking for a career ATM that spits out your ideal career, assessments will disappoint. Assessments are not designed to give one-size-fits-all answers to “Which career is right for me?”

Rather, they’re tools that can help guide your career exploration with greater insight and precision. The real value of these assessments lies in their interpretation and incorporation into a grander scheme. Whether you take immediate action, or let the results percolate, assessments will surely expand your self-awareness so you can feel confident that you’re making the right decisions for you. And that’s a good thing.

Ready to explore the next chapter in your professional story?

We can help you take the first step.

Learn more about our Career Coaching services.