Category Archives: Career Satisfaction Tests

Work Values Assessments: What Matters to You

Posted on by

Reviewed October 28, 2026

A work values assessment helps clarify what matters to you in your career. It gives us a starting point for examining the rewards, responsibilities and working conditions you are willing to pursue—and the trade-offs you would find difficult to accept.

You can enjoy the subject of your work and perform its tasks well while still feeling that something important is missing. Greater independence, stability, meaningful service or room to develop expertise may matter more than a different occupation title.

What are work values?

Work values concern what you consider important in working life. Depending on the assessment, you may explore priorities such as:

  • Independence and room to make decisions.
  • Security and continuity.
  • Service to people or a cause.
  • Achievement, challenge or expertise.
  • The relationship between work and the rest of life.

These examples are not a universal set of assessment scales. Different instruments define and organize values differently. Their usefulness depends on the question you need to answer and how the findings are applied.

Career Anchors and values inventories

Career Anchors, developed through Edgar Schein’s work, explores a career self-concept involving perceived talents, motives and values. It is broader than a simple list of preferences. Reflection on work experience helps make the discussion concrete. MIT Sloan describes the career-anchor concept.

The framework can be useful when considering how you want your career to develop or why an attractive opportunity does not feel right. It does not establish your natural abilities through performance tasks.

COPES is a different instrument: a workplace values survey within the COPSystem. COPS assesses interests and CAPS assesses abilities; those are separate assessments. The COPES publisher describes its workplace-values focus.

Before choosing, examine the sample report, intended audience and interpretation provided. Some tools clarify priorities; others connect the findings with career exploration resources. They do not all produce the same kind of guidance.

Values need practical definitions

“I value independence” is a useful beginning. It becomes more useful when we ask what independence means in your daily work. Do you want to decide how to complete a task, choose your hours, avoid close supervision or build your own business? Those choices have different implications.

Illustrative example: A person may value autonomy and also need reliable income. Starting a business is one possibility, but so is a salaried role offering responsibility for how work is carried out. We need to investigate actual conditions rather than assume one employment arrangement meets every need.

Consultation helps distinguish a preference, an important priority and a requirement you cannot reasonably compromise.

Values and circumstances belong in the same conversation

An assessment does not establish whether a particular job offers what you need. Nor does it settle your financial commitments, family responsibilities, location or feasible training options.

We turn your priorities into questions to investigate: What decisions would I control? How predictable is the schedule? What does advancement involve? Which parts of the work serve the purpose I care about?

This helps distinguish dissatisfaction with a particular workplace from a mismatch with the work itself. It also gives you clearer criteria when comparing opportunities.

Connect values with your whole profile

Values add a perspective alongside interests, personal style, natural abilities and the skills you have developed. They do not replace those findings. A role may offer something important to you while requiring tasks you do not want as your main focus.

During consultation, we examine the combination and connect it with your goals. Values may be explored through a dedicated assessment or through discussion, depending on your selected package and needs. Check the profile package components before purchasing.

Your next step

Begin by buying and completing the profile package of your choice. Each assessment includes consultation, with video interpretation followed by consultation or consultations alone as specified by the selected package. I am Marjorie Wall Hofer, the consultant for people coming through The Career Profiler.

Decide your next step at the final profile consultation. If you choose Targeting or Landing afterward, those involve further coaching sessions with me. Find My Profile Package, or book a free 30-minute consultation to clarify the process before purchasing.

The Career Profiler owns TestEts, where assessment and package purchases take place.

Explore the other assessment types

Return to the assessment overview.

Find a career that exercises your innate abilities

The Hidden Reason Employees Quit

Posted on by

Historical article. The dates, pay figures and employment projections below reflect the article’s original sources. For current occupational information, consult the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Today’s average employee stays at the job a mere 1.5 years, according to recent Department of Labor statistic. Are managers doing that bad a job of engaging and retaining their people? Is this rate of turnover simply the new norm? Is it due to an increase in carer dissatisfaction?

Job satisfaction is also related to ability-based career profile matching

Job dissatisfaction causes workers to quit job

There are hundreds of books about the causes of career dissatisfaction, yet a whopping 89% of managers still think low pay is the reason most employees quit. The facts are hidden from the people who need them most. In reality, 88% of voluntary employee turnovers are the result of something other than money, according to data from the Saratoga Institute.

There are plenty of suggestions as to why employees feel discontent and then quit. It’s a lack of coaching and feedback. The workplace and job weren’t what the employee expected. There aren’t enough advancement opportunities. Workers don’t feel valued. There’s too much stress. These can all be a part of dissatisfaction, but they do not help us find the solution to the problem.

The Solution

Managers and employees aren’t trained to recognize the real causes of career dissatisfaction or satisfaction. It can be hard to see the simple fact that the reason for turnover is that the wrong people are being hired in the first place. Managers look for people with the skills that make them right for the job, when what is actually most important is finding workers with the innate abilities that make them suitable for the job.

In other words, if the job requires climbing trees, you need to hire a monkey, not a goose. You can train the goose all you want, but the monkey is going to do a better and faster job every time. Not only that, but the monkey will love the job and therefore stay. The goose will definitely have some career dissatisfaction. But how do you find who’s a monkey and who’s a goose? It all comes down to ability-based career profiling.

Everyone has abilities that they were born with. The secret of ability-based career profiling is matching those abilities with the job that makes the most out of them. An abilities test takes the innate abilities of a person and creates a list of most suitable jobs. Oftentimes, these tests find subtle differences that turn into major outcomes.

For example, two people may have the innate ability to be good engineers, but only one of them is a generalist and extrovert. If you promote the wrong one, you may be removing your best engineer from the job and putting them in a position where they feel uncomfortable and incompetent. Choosing the right candidate, however, can take a merely competent engineer into a career where they really excel. This doesn’t mean one is objectively better than the other; they simply have a different array of natural talents that make them more fit for certain jobs. If a manager (and the employee) understand this, great work will be done efficiently, effectively, and produce career happiness!

Abilities Tests

Ability-based career profiling goes way beyond asking employees what they like to do. That’s simply a survey on which a person could lie or give an inaccurate answer. The great thing about ability-based career profiles is that they don’t lie. Through these tests, an employee’s true talents come out.

Don’t ignore the single most important factor in employee job satisfaction. Good employers want to build a great talent pool, and they know it all begins with selecting the right person in the first place. You can try to train the goose to climb, or you can let ability testing find the monkey.

Are you feeling the affects of career dissatisfaction? If you want to find out which career will allow you to excel and be happy, then check out our ability-based career tests. Finally, for questions or comments, feel free to get in touch with The Career Profiler!

 

[ninja_forms id=5]

 

Career Satisfaction Tests

Posted on by

Reviewed October 28, 2026

Career satisfaction assessments identify what you need at work to be happy. They examine the activities that interest you, the abilities you need opportunities to use, and the personality factors that shape how you approach work. Consultation brings those findings together with your external needs and circumstances.

Through your completed profile and consultations, you will know the careers in which you can achieve success and satisfaction—and what those careers need to offer you.

What do satisfaction assessments measure?

“Career satisfaction assessments” describes the purpose of this profiling approach. It is not the name of one test that measures everything about your happiness. Different assessments reveal different parts of what makes work satisfying for you.

On a narrow screen, scroll across the chart.

The information that forms your satisfaction profile
Part of the profile What it contributes Question to answer
Interests The activities and subjects that attract and engage you. What do I want my work to involve?
Natural abilities and internal needs Highlands ability patterns, interpreted in terms of the activities and contributions you need to express. What do I need opportunities to use and contribute?
Personality factors Your preferred ways of approaching work, information, decisions and interaction. How do I prefer to work?
External needs and circumstances Requirements such as income, schedule, location, responsibilities and access to training, explored through consultation. What must a career or job provide in my life?

Interests: what draws you in

An interest assessment helps identify the kinds of activities you enjoy. The Strong Interest Inventory connects interest patterns with occupations and educational pathways. Available reports depend on the version and package you choose.

Interest and ability answer different questions. Enjoying an activity does not tell you everything about your ability to perform it, the skills you have developed or the working conditions you need. Read Career Interest Tests: How to Choose for the comparison.

Highlands: abilities that need expression

The Highlands Ability Battery uses timed performance tasks to explore natural abilities. In this profiling approach, Marjorie interprets your pattern to identify the abilities you need opportunities to use and how they contribute to satisfying work.

This is more specific than listing things you are good at. You may have developed a skill while still wanting a different kind of work. The Highlands explanation of abilities in context distinguishes aptitudes from learned skills and considers their place alongside other parts of a person’s life.

Personality: how you approach work

Personality findings add another dimension: how you prefer to gather information, make decisions, engage with people and organize your approach. The MBTI publisher distinguishes personality preferences from skills and abilities. A preference does not make a career off-limits.

Different reports apply personality findings to career exploration, relationships, leadership or development. The report should serve your goal rather than simply give you a type label.

Consultation: fit the work to your life

A satisfying career also needs to work in your circumstances. A report cannot discuss the income you require, the responsibilities you carry or the trade-offs you are prepared to make. Those external needs are addressed through consultation with Marjorie Wall Hofer.

For example, someone may need both complex problem-solving work and a predictable schedule. Knowing the first requirement helps identify suitable careers; understanding the second helps select the role and setting. The consultation connects the two.

Choose your profile package

Find My Profile Package to compare assessment coverage, reports and debrief formats. Packages vary; not every package includes every assessment described here. Current prices and specific inclusions appear on the linked TestEts product pages.

The Career Profiler owns TestEts. Clients coming through this website work with Marjorie. Each assessment in the chosen package includes consultation, either through the available video-plus-consultation format or consultations alone.

First, buy and complete your chosen profile package. Decide your next step at the final profile consultation. If you choose Targeting or Landing, the next phase involves coaching sessions with Marjorie. Read the process of finding a satisfying career, or request a free 30-minute introductory consultation to clarify your questions.