Intellectual competence: how sound assessment can make such a difference to career management


Even many seasoned executives and professionals reach a stage where they feel a need to take stock of the balance and direction in their career. A sound psychological assessment can make a great difference to how well they conduct their career as a project or enterprise.

Research by leading psychologists at the University of London, Adrian Furnham and Tomas Chamoro-Premuzic), explain this in terms of what they call 'intellectual competance'; a person's capacity to acquire and consolidate knowledge throughout his or her life, which depends on ability, personality and insight into themselves. This, they explain, is what accounts for how people develop their ability, how confidence affects this development and how people carry out their day-to-day tasks.

The purpose of using psycholoigcal measurement in career guidance is to improve the level of prediction of successful performance and of personal satisfaction in the field of work an individual may choose at the start of working life, or perhaps just as important, at a later stage.

Some problems in life call for indepth, objective analysis of data. When the question is the career strategy of any adult, sometimes it may be vital to stand back from immediate pressures of the job market and edicational world to take stock of the individual.

What is called 'interdomain' guidance is a blend of two things,really.

Firstly, collecting data on three 'domains' in the makeup of the person, using instruments based on sound research: vocational interests; the structure of his or her abilities;< and characteristic strengths and limitations of his or her personality

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And secondly, presenting this data in ways that he or she can really grasp and relate to past experience and to present circumstances.

Assurance

Before considering the three domains of a person that colour how he or she builds their career, consider three aspects of the process of psychological assessment that we wish to assure you about.

  1. Fitness for purpose. We select instruments that are as valid as possible for the purpose of providing objective assessment to each individual personally. Just as you may reasonably expect a medical consultant to use the right instruments for a MRI scan or a neurological test, you can rely on us to choose appropriate pscyhological measurement instruments for the individual's needs;
  2. Reports you can read easily: We appreciate that reports are intended to help the individual make an important, probably challenging decision; That is why we write them in plain English, with clear, compelling explanations and use well-designed drawings where there's a need to include figures.
  3. Confidentiality Other than in the rare case of indispostion or incapacity, reports on vocational interests, abilities and personality characteristics are provided only to the individual client.

Online administration makes it straightforwward to complete many assessments on your own computer, and receive feedback by email (although this can be more difficult to arrange with tests of ability that are necessarily timed.

Structures of ability

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Many people have found that the feedback from tests of this kind have stimulated them to revise assumptions and beliefs they formed in early stages of secondary school, which rather narrowed their paths of achievement. People who need to make adjustments due to injury or illness can also get very useful feedback on their abilities that sometimes opens up avenues of adjustment and rehabilitation they never anticipated.

p>Information on the structure of a person's ability can provide very useful information about what he or she is most - and least! - endowed to do well or poorly. Measured tests of ability can provide valid data on verbal, numerical and spatial abilities as well as on situational leadership.

For consistency with patterns of vocational interests, we select measures of ability from more than one of these classes of measures:

  • Working with things, rather than ideas or people: including measures of mechanical ability, spatial ability;
  • Investigative abilities, such as measures of verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning and general intelligence. With some people, measures to identify barriers to effective reading and calculation may also be necessary;
  • Social abilities such as measures of 'emotional intelligence' or measures of prejudical or socially-problematic discrimatory behaviour;
  • Enterprising talents, such as measures of 'situational leadership'.

Personality factors

Understanding how you tend to respond to other people is vital to managing working relationships. This is especially the case where you need to work intensively but briefly with people you don't know. The soundest way forward is to have a realistic picture of the typical impact of behaviour you choose

In combination with other measures, two sound measures of personality can throw light on unexpected developments or areas of underachievement or difficulties. We usually administer at least two of these measures:

  • Hogan Personality Indicator
  • Hogan Development Survey
  • Saville Consulting WAVE
  • Saville Consulting WAVE 360
  • Margerison & McCann Team Management Index
  • Kelly's repertory grid

Vocational Interests

While used on a standalone basis, measures of vocational interest are unlikely to be adequate guides to fields in which a person is likely to combine productivity and satisfaction. In combination with other measures, two sound measures of vocational interests can throw light on apparent contradictions. We usually administer at least two of these measures:

  • Hogan Motives, Values and Preferences Inventory
  • Strong Interest Inventory
  • Holland's Self-Directed Search.

Measures of patterns of interest are not timed. They don't reflect directly on the capability of the person but on kinds of tasks he or she is likely to be more or less content to work on.