Explanation of Assessments
Vocational Assessments
“What are you all about?”
Remember:
Career Planning is a process, not a single assessment!
The Career Services Office offers a variety
of assessment instruments to assist you in your search for a future
career and lifestyle. We recommend the taking of two assessments -
the Campbell Interest Skill Survey (CISS) and the Myers/Briggs
Type Indicator.
What are Career Assessments?
There are many types of career
assessments out on the market. No one assessment
will tell you what job you will be best at nor what job you will like the best.
These assessments will be very different from most of the earlier assessments
you took in high school. Also, you are very different in maturity towards
making large decisions in your life.
Assessments may provide some insights into such areas as: what
your personality is like, what you like and dislike, what motivates you, how you
make decisions, what type of people and environments you enjoy, and what might
be your strongest skills.
In making the best possible decision on a major and
/or a career, you need to spend time assessing yourself in the areas of:
Personality: You need to develop an
understanding of your personality type and how your type will best fit into
a specific job. Assessing your personality will provide you information on
what motivates you, how you relate and work with others, and what skills you
may want to use in the future.
Decision Making: You need to learn how
you make decisions and perhaps better ways to make decisions in the future.
To make effective decisions you need to increase your understanding of who
you are and how this matches with specific job requirements and working
conditions.
Developmental Needs: You need to learn
ways to improve your personal and professional effectiveness.
What Assessments are Available to You?
Within the Career Services Office we have three
major assessments available. Based on where you are with your search you may
benefit from taking one or all of these assessments. Each assessment will
help you brainstorm about hundreds of different career options.
Campbell Interest and Skill
Survey - Cost: $10.00
The Campbell Survey provides occupational
information based on both your self-assessed
skills and interests. You will receive a computer generated report providing
extensive information on the relationship between your skills and interests,
and how your results relate to specific occupations. The survey will provide
guidance on whether you should further develop specific skills and / or
interests, and whether you should pursue, avoid, develop, or explore
specific careers.
Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator (MBTI) - Cost: $2.00
This personality assessment provides information
on how you interact with the world, how you collect and use information, how
you make decisions, and how you organize the world around you. This
information is very valuable when you compare how you will fit within an
organization and how you may perform within a specific job.
Procedures in Taking
the Assessments
If you decide to take the assessments, you may
either call 346-3226 or stop into the Career Services Office to set up a time to
take the CISS. The MBTI can be taken with you to be completed and returned
to the office to be scored. The CISS will take about 45 minutes to be
completed on a computer in our office. Once you know when you are going to
take the assessments, you can schedule an appointment with a counselor to have
your results interpreted. Interpretation is required to make sure the
results are correctly understood. If you have questions, the office staff
will be able to clarify the assessments and the procedures.
Once you have completed the assessments and had them
interpreted for you there are many resources where you can research more
information on both the results and/or about possible occupations and related
majors. Although we recommend these two assessments, we also encourage you
to take other assessments to increase the number of occupations you may review
before making your next step in deciding your major or career direction.
Some of these assessments can be found by using WISCareers and links found on
our assessment page. Again, ask if you have questions.