The Role of Professional Career Guidance and the Available Options

It is relatively easy to spot someone with good hand-eye coordination and suggest they pursue a career as a surgeon, motor mechanic or airline partner. However, this isolated ability is insufficient to determine how successful or contented that person might be in any of these proposed roles. Statistics suggest the average person remains in the same job for around 39 years before considering a change. So, it might be advisable to seek some professional career guidance before devoting almost four decades to the first available job merely to secure an income.

There are various ways to obtain career advice. A school leaver, for example, may be able to chat with a teacher who can make suggestions based on exam results and personal knowledge of their character and interests. This option can work for some, but people’s interests and abilities may sometimes conflict.

Knowledge of a particular job, its requirements, and employee benefits can also be helpful. It can be obtained from employment agencies or attending events like the Working World Exhibition, an event held in February this year, or the Unisa Careers Fair in May. However, while each option is informative, none can predict whether a particular job is right for you. Fortunately, psychometric assessments offer a more reliable way to provide career guidance and ensure you won’t become a square peg in a round hole.

Psychometric Testing – The Key to Successful Career Guidance

The IQ test was the first practical application of psychometry. The test involved questions and puzzles designed to evaluate verbal, observational, numerical and problem-solving skills to provide an overall assessment of the ill-defined quality known as intelligence. However, practice has repeatedly demonstrated that intellect alone does not guarantee performance.

Career planning is a two-way street and is as essential to employers as it is to prospective employees. Modern psychometric assessments have proved invaluable to employers and recruitment agencies in finding the best candidates to fill job vacancies in any role or industry. However, there is no single test to evaluate the qualities required for every type of job. The following are the main options:

• Aptitude tests: These tests are designed to determine an individual’s ability to perform various tasks. Some may be purely practical and designed to test mechanical skills, while others evaluate rational abilities like verbal and numerical reasoning. Either way, an aptitude test can be a reliable predictor of workplace effectiveness.

• Cognitive and learning potential: Measuring the cognitive skills essential for solving problems and overcoming challenges, like conceptual thinking and making complex situational judgements, can provide valuable insight into a candidate’s current and future potential.

• Personality tests: It takes more than the stated skills to succeed in a job. Candidates’ ability to interact positively and productively with managers and colleagues is vital to a company’s success. In short, it will depend on the attitudes and behavioural trends consistent with their personalities, as revealed by the career guidance obtained from these tests.

• Integrity: A candidate’s integrity and ethics can serve as a reliable means of identifying those prone to counter-productive behaviour, information that could avoid the need to dismiss an employee prematurely and the additional cost of finding a more suitable replacement.

• Emotional intelligence (EI): Many people would dismiss the concept of emotional intelligence as an oxymoron. Instead, they believe that intelligent people would not allow themselves to be influenced by anything as intangible as the emotional needs of a colleague. Such people can perform well individually but will never be team players. These psychometric assessments measure qualities like empathy, supportiveness, cooperation and the ability to form and maintain amicable relationships with managers, team leaders and colleagues.

Career Guidance Should Not End with Recruitment

Just as a brand-new vehicle will require maintenance, employees’ needs don’t end on the day they are appointed. HR departments will generally conduct an orientation session with a new staff member, appraise their performance annually and provide relevant feedback. But what about their long-term career path and those of existing employees?

Career pathing is as crucial as career guidance to ensure job satisfaction, promote employee loyalty and minimise staff turnover. Psychometric testing offers a practical and objective means to spot hidden potential and expose areas where appropriate training could enhance an employee’s long-term prospects.

Orgro has the necessary resources and experience to streamline your recruitment process, promote employee loyalty, and minimise staff attrition with efficient career pathing. We invite you to contact us so we can do all this for you.