Part 6a: Career Personality Tests use Subjective Assessments
All true career personality tests use subjective measures to assess career relevant factors. There are several points to be aware of when choosing subjective career test assessments which encompasses all career personality tests.
Career Personality Test Limitations:
- Career Personality Tests use Subjective Measurements to Extrapolate Career Test Results
First of all, career tests based on SUBJECTIVE MEASUREMENTS means that results are based on what you “think” or deem to be the correct answer. Your answer response could be a guess, but it should be more like a “gut” response. In other words, the answer to an item should result from your first impression to a question or statement. The best results to subjective measures such as career personality tests come from answers generated by a quick, automatic reaction to each question/statement item presented in the career test.
Secondly, career tests using subjective measurements (all career personality tests) provide word based options from which to select your answer. In other words, the subjective test is BASED SOLELY ON WORDS OR LANGUAGE. All words within any language carry subtleties in their meaning and you must think of words in accordance to the dominant or most common meaning in order to obtain the best results. Not all individuals associate words with their common usage such as “Specialist” as determined by the THAB career
ability test.
Another way to understand the impact of language in subjective measurements is to consider the following example. If I say the word “black”, what pops up in your head immediately. It is _____. Well, over the past 15 years, I have received 39 different responses to this word including Halloween (in May), blue collar worker, night, and white. The most common answer is white. Therefore, if a career personality test included a question of “black” as part of their career test, the answer “white” would be one of the choices for example. If you don’t think of “black” in terms of “white” you might have either a difficult time selecting from the answer options or you might attribute a different understanding to the word altogether. As you can see, your personal understanding
of a word is, therefore, critical to producing accurate results on any career personality test.
Career Test Confustion occurs when you have not had enough opportunities to discover who you are
Thirdly, career tests based on subjective measures such as are all career personality tests are impacted by the OPPORTUNITIES you have had to know yourself. For instance, if you are a young adult who grew up in a household where your parents determined your activities, you watches a lot of TV, you held no prior jobs, and you engaged in no voluntary activities, you likely will not have had enough opportunities to know your personal responses to various situation or to know your interests in a variety of categories to
produce accurate results. This would make it very difficult to know how to respond to any question and deliberation over your answer could yield inaccurate results. While this example presents an extreme situation, it is relevant for our society today. Many young adults have their lives so programmed by their parents; lack of self-knowledge is one of the unintended consequences of their good intentions.
There are more subtle examples of the lack of opportunities to know oneself. Most, if not all, career test takers are “stumped” by at least a couple of questions. Rather than react to it as they should, these test taker then ponder over the question and their answer subjecting it to inaccuracies. Bottom-line, the greater your personal self-knowledge,
the better and more accurate your career personality test results.
Fourthly, career tests based on subjective measures are subject to PERSONAL MANIPULATION. In other words, you might be taking a career personality test as part of work team and know that the result of your career test will be shared with the group. You deem certain characteristics and traits to be more valued by the group and the company and so select answers that reflect the deemed desirable traits. You have thereby skewed the results of your career tests and the career test results are not accurate.
Finally, the factor of CHANCE plays a role in every career test. For instance, if you take a career personality test on a “bad hair day”, subsequently you will likely receive “bad hair day” results. Chance as well as all the other limitations is factored into the reliability and validity of career personality tests which we will review inthe next blog.
Which career personality tests are the MOST SUSCEPTIBLE to these limitations? Myers Briggs tests top the list, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not a useful, reliable or valid tool. It is. The publishers have recognized its susceptibilities and published a “test the test” process that The Career Profiler had begun using with clients years before.
If ever you have taken a career personality test and QUESTION the ACCURACY of YOUR RESULTS, please contact a career test expert such as The Career Profiler to review the results with you. There are many factors that can reviewed to determine accuracy and alternative solutions to retaking the career test is sometime possible. OR, you can simply retake the test at www.testets.com and choose exactly the kind and amount of information you wish to gain from it. Getting a career test consultation is alwasy recommended as it provides you with better understanding of your results, ways to apply the results in real-life working situations and brief descriptions and examples of your occupational matches.
Given all of these limitations . . . Why would you want to take a Career Personality Test? What to do if you have taken or wish to take a Myers Briggs test? Which career
personality tests produce the most accurate results? These questions, the limitations and specific reasons to take career personality tests will be presented in the next blog (part
6b). Stay tuned.