Workshop delivered on behalf of British COuncil Pakistan on December 8, 2012

1. Psychometrics & Other
Assessment Tools in
Career Counseling

2. Your Facilitator
Learning | Consulting | Assessment | Search
• NarejoHR,
• Established 2002
• Service Offerings, Growing Businesses Through People
• Rahila Narejo
• Chief Executive & Lead HR Consultant, NarejoHR (Pvt.) Ltd.
• Psychobiologist, Univ. California, Los Angeles
• Psychometrician, British Psychological Society (Levels A + B)
• Certified Balanced Scorecard Professional, Palladium Group
• Columnist, DAWN Newspaper, Workplace Sanity
• Associate Certified Coach (ACC), International Coaching Federation
• MSc. NeuroLeadership, Middlesex Univ. & NeuroLeadership Institute
!

3. Agenda
10 am - 5 pm
TIME ITEM
10:00 – 11:00 Welcome, Intro, Ground Rules
11:00 – 11:15 Tea break
11:15 – 13:00 Learning Objective 1
Learning Objective 2
13:00 – 14:00 Lunch
14:00 – 15:30 Learning Objective 3
15:30 – 15:45 Tea break
15:45 – 16:30 Learning Objective 4
16:30 – 17:00 Review, Closing

4. Learning Objectives
1. The Difference Between Objective and Subjective
Assessments
2. Importance of Validity and Reliability of
Assessment Tools
Practice (10A’s):
3. Incorporating Assessments into Counseling
4. Effective Client Debriefing and Action Planning

5. Over half of all Counselors Make This Mistake
Tell

6. Career Counseling Stages
• Self Assessment
• Occupational
Exploration
• Decision Making Facilitate
• Job Hunting
• Work Adjustment

7. Your Job?
Interests
Abilities
Values /Skills

8. Usman Riaz

9. Interests
• Strong Interest Inventory
• Career Assessment Inventory
• Self-Directed Search
• Kuder instruments
• Kuder Occupational Interest
Survey
• Kuder General Interest Survey

10. Write your “10 Truths”
1. ______________________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________________
4. ______________________________________________________
5. ______________________________________________________
6. ______________________________________________________
7. ______________________________________________________
8. ______________________________________________________
9. ______________________________________________________
10. ______________________________________________________

11. Abilities/Skills
• Armed Services Vocational
Aptitude Battery; Differential
Aptitude Test
• Campbell Interest and Skills
Survey
• Skills Confidence Inventory
• Self-estimates of abilities

12. Values
• Minnesota Importance
Questionnaire
• O*NET Work
Importance Profiler
• Values Scale
• Salience Inventory

13. Integrative Career
Assessments
• These programs combine interests, abilities,
and values assessments
• Kuder Career Planning System
• COPSystem
• Integrated assessment and career information
systems
• These systems include multiple assessments as well as
an integration of occupational information
• DISCOVER Program
• SIGI-Plus

14. Career Assessment
Ø Assessments rather than “tests”. Designed to
measure aspects of individuality not achievement,
abilities, or intelligence.
Ø Increase client participation and client confidence
Ø Assessment provides focus and suggestion into
client’s exploration of the world of work and
opportunity
Ø Objective & Subjective Assessments

15. Career Assessment
Ø Many clients expectations of career counseling revolve
around “testing” and the “tests”
Ø Historical record of usefulness for career decision
makers
Ø Assessments are not used by anyone other than the
counselor and client and are confidential
Ø Assessments give suggestions, but should not tell clients
what to do, clients make the decision
Ø Counselors select, administer, and interpret career
assessment instruments to assist clients in occupational
exploration and career decision making.

16. Objective & Subjective
Assessments
• Gather reliable information for initial self-analysis.
• Build self-esteem by recognizing unique strengths
and skills.
• Provide a springboard for discussion and enhanced
self-awareness.
• Form the basis for targeted career, industry, and
workplace exploration.
• Aid in the decision-making and action plan stages.

17. Objective Assessments
• Constructed by Assessment Experts
• Unbiased, impartial responses
• Examples:
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI),
• the Golden Personality Type Profiler (GPTP),
• Keirsey Temperament Sorter,
• the Holland Self-Directed Search (SDS),
• other assessments built on the time-tested and well-
respected Holland RIASEC model.

18. What does personality have to do
with careers?
• John Holland studied
people and careers.
• He found that people who
had a career that matched
their personality were
happier.

19. Holland’s
RIASEC
Model

20. Which
RIASEC
type are you?

21. Other Assessments with
RIASEC Output
• The O*NET Computerized Interest
Profiler (for Windows), which you can
download atwww.onetcenter.org/CIP.html
• http://www.careersportal.ie/
careerguidance_toolbox.php

24. Let’s see how we do!
• As a group, tape your 6 occupation
cards under the corresponding
personality
• Example:
What Holland Code do you think a
__________is most like?

25. Psychometric Testing
(Workplace Application)
• Example of when testing may be appropriate:
• If the desired job role requires a certain level of basic
skill e.g. literacy or numeracy
• Dyslexia assessment, if you notice difficulty in doing
some tasks at work
• If the client has no idea of the type of role they would
like to do or be best suited to
• If a client’s career or job seeking abilities appear to be
affected by a change in their cognitive abilities e.g.
memory functioning, emotional regulation

26. Measures
Achievement – designed to measure how much an
individual has learned. (Past)
Ability – measures the maximum performance and
the level of present ability an individual has to
perform a current task. (Present)
Aptitude – reveals the probable future level of ability
to perform a task. (Future)
Past/achievement
Present/Ability Future/Aptitude

27. Subjective Assessments
• Constructed by Counselors and even Clients
• Feelings-based, visioning input
• Equally valuable information as Objective Assessments
• Consistency comparison between Objective and Subjective
can verify results
• Examples:
• Questionnaires, exercises
• journaling
• guided imagery

28. Measures
Reliability – consistent results
Validity – measuring what it
says it measures

29. Example –SAT
Scholastic Aptitude Test
1. Is the SAT an Objective or
Subjective?
2. Is the SAT an Achievement or
an Aptitude (for college) test?
3. Is the SAT valid?
4. Is the SAT reliable?

30. Example –SAT
Scholastic Aptitude Test
• Objective, but never proven to predict future college success,
numerous studies show grades are superior predictors.
• The SAT was really an achievement test.
• The SAT is not valid because it measures achievement rather
than predicting future success (aptitude).
• Prep courses dramatically increase scores on the SAT.
• The SAT is not reliable because individuals can have
inconsistent results from different sittings.
• The SAT is, however, a goldmine for the College Board’s ETS, is
defended by powerful lobbyists at all levels of government and
education.
• Psychometrically, a poor test; economically a boon.

31. Counselor Use of Assessments
1. Selection or Prescription
2. Administration
3. Interpretation

32. Structure of a Counseling Call
• 1) At Ease
• 2) Agenda
• 3) Active Listening
• 4) Asking Powerful Questions
• 5) Acknowledgement
• 6) Action ~
Accountability
• 7) Applause

33. (3+7) 10 A’s
1. At Ease: Putting the client at ease by creating trust and intimacy
2. Agenda: 2: overall agenda that will put the client on a path of lifelong
fulfillment, the big “A” agenda (or, the life agenda); and the little “a”
agenda, or immediate agenda for call
3. Active Listening: Interactively listening to and with the client
4. Asking Powerful Questions: Asking questions that bring forth new
insights, ideas, empowerment, and action
5. Acknowledgement: Acknowledging the client’s strengths, resourcefulness,
wholeness
6. Action ~ Accountability: clarify actions that will lead to agreed-upon
results It is the client’s responsibility to take action, not yours. Inquire
about how the client wants to hold him/herself accountable
7. Applause: Celebrating successes and wins, even in the midst of “failure”

34. Practice
1. Greet the client warmly & establish rapport
2. Explain Confidentiality
3. Establish an Agenda for the Counseling Call
Agenda

35. Practice
Groups of three – Counselor, Client, Observer
Spend five minutes interviewing, using open ended
questions to “10 Truths,” Holland Code, and Visioning
Observers record good “powerful questions” to report
back
Awareness

36. Action
• What will that mean for you/others? What do you want/
need?
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
• On a scale of 1-10, how committed are you to making that
happen?
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
• What is the right action to take at this time?
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________

37. Question Time

38. Thank You!
• Download a copy of today’s presentation:
www.slideshare.net/narejo