Jack, a bright, ambitious accountant, was poised to become a partner at one of the top accounting firms in the country before his 40th birthday. By all accounts, he was on the fast track to success. But it was coming at a cost to his livelihood. Jack craved a career with greater meaning but wasn’t sure how to approach making a change at this point in his professional life.
Elena was an energetic events and meeting planner for a large hotel chain. Until the pandemic hit. Business came to a screeching halt, and after a few months, her position was eliminated. Having worked in the hospitality industry for her entire career, she had no idea what else was out there for her.
Gideon was a high school senior, looking forward to starting college in the fall. Since both of his parents were doctors, it was assumed that he, too, would pursue a medical degree. But something in the back of his mind was nagging at him. Was pre-med the right major for him?
While at different ages and stages of their professional lives, Jack, Elena and Gideon are each trying to figure out their next career move. Considering the possibilities can be both exhilarating and overwhelming for anyone.
Especially if you’re not quite sure where to start.
Abilities: A Springboard for Career Exploration
What role can abilities play in determining your career decisions?
Recognizing your natural abilities helps you understand why certain things come so easily to you while others require more time, effort and energy. Taken a step further, respecting your natural abilities helps you land in a career that feels right. Your job may not even feel like work. You’re likelier to feel more fulfilled and satisfied, and it shows in your performance.
Related: How Assessments Can Help Guide Your Next Career Move
While many people have the same abilities as you, the way your natural abilities combine in all sorts of interesting blends and patterns renders you uniquely you — especially when you consider them in conjunction with your personality, interests, values and goals. When you explore these factors holistically and consider how they integrate and support each other, you can get closer to seeing what career directions you’ll likely thrive in, find most rewarding, and offer maximum positive impact as well.
The Highlands Ability Battery Reveals Your Natural Abilities
Because your natural abilities are “hardwired,” they’ll consistently show up for you, which can be reassuring in a world of constant change. They also demand expression, whether in your career, volunteer experiences or hobbies.
People often confuse abilities with skills, but they’re two different animals. Abilities are innate, stabilizing at around age 14. Skills, on the other hand, can be developed at any time throughout your life and will decline if you don’t use them. Skills get rusty. Abilities don’t!
Introduced by the Highlands Company in 1992, the Highlands Ability Battery (HAB) is a standardized assessment of aptitudes based on over 100 years of ongoing research and third-party psychometric validation. Comprised of 19 objective, timed work samples and using a “Whole Person Approach,” the HAB reveals your natural abilities and personal style preferences.
Here are a few sample questions the HAB can help answer:
1. What type of work environment am I most likely to enjoy?
Do you thrive on constant interaction with others, or crave solitude to recharge your energy? Would you thrive in a fast-paced, chaotic environment or perform better in a role that allows for time to make slower, more deliberate decisions?
Elena didn’t leave her job by choice. She loved it! She was adept at juggling multiple schedules, unruffled by last-minute changes and energized by constantly interacting with others. Based on her ability profile, this made perfect sense and provided some important filters through which to consider new career opportunities with similar work environments.
2. How do I learn best?
Do you learn best by reading? Listening to podcasts? Assigning rhythmic patterns to help you memorize new concepts?
Your natural abilities influence how you take in, process and recall new information. These are valuable insights well beyond your traditional school years.
Whether you’re choosing to learn a foreign language to prepare for a trip to another country or developing additional proficiencies to add to your skill set, knowing your strongest learning channels can be tremendously helpful throughout your career — and beyond.
3. How can I play to my strengths?
The Highlands Ability Battery can help you refine your career decisions by highlighting your strengths. It can also help you discover hidden or underutilized talents.
Medicine could be the right career path for Gideon based on his natural abilities. However, given his ability profile, he might find greater satisfaction as a pediatric neurosurgeon than an internist or emergency room doctor.
Jack’s ability to quickly generate tons of ideas (an ability referred to as “Idea Productivity” in the HAB) was a gift that he wasn’t using in his accounting role. Knowing this helped him understand why he often felt restless and frustrated. Better yet, it empowered him to consider other career options that celebrated this strong natural ability.
Knowing who you are and what you have to offer is the foundation for a strong professional brand. Your abilities are your gifts. Your strengths. The HAB can give you the language to articulate them.
Harnessing the Power of the HAB
One of the hidden benefits of the Highlands Ability Battery is that it can validate what you think you know about yourself. These lightbulb moments can be both comforting and empowering.
Career assessments like the Highlands Ability Battery are tools. While they can’t prescribe the perfect career, they can help you decide which role and work environments make the most sense to explore. The more data you collect about yourself, the better equipped you become to make career-related decisions that are right for you.
If knowledge is power, then self-knowledge is a super-power. One you can use to make career decisions with greater confidence, precision and finesse.
Change is good.
It can also be confusing if you’re not sure where to start.
Learn how assessments can help guide your career exploration.