14/01/2021
Career - to wander aimlessly from side to side with neither control nor direction????
A couple of years ago, I responded to a call from our local authority’s Youth Employment Team to volunteer to participate in their ‘World of Work’ programme. They sought ’businesspeople’ to visit local secondary schools and talk to groups of students about their own experiences of higher education. The programme comprised a series of short talks to groups of Year 9 students about different aspects of further and higher education as well as apprenticeships and university life. Between these presentations, the businesspeople spoke for a few minutes about their experiences and their own careers followed by questions from the students. After this period, the businesspeople moved on to the next group of students in rotation.
I opened my chat with the observation that I was fortunate to have decided on my career at the age of six years. I was determined to become aircrew in the Royal Air Force, achieving that ambition, later than planned, at the age of twenty-three! I then asked the students if any of them had any specific career plans. The responses were much the same in every group, not just in that school, but in every school that I have visited over the past two years. Apart from the occasional blogger, vlogger, influencer, Youtuber and of course the occasional professional footballer! There were of course some with a clear idea about their futures, but they were a tiny minority of the many hundreds of students that I have spoken to.
Around this time, I reconnected on LinkedIn with a former RAF colleague, who worked for a large international psychometrics publishing company. He told me about an exciting new product called the Career-Fit Profile. I quickly followed up with the company, visiting them and their UK HQ, and talking to the MD at length about the profile and what it had to offer young students.
I learned that the profile had been developed with the support was having a significant support from Solihull College of FE and the JLR Plant in Coventry. At the college prospective students were asked to complete the assessment to make sure that their choice of courses was consistent with their true preferences. As a result of the use of the Profile, course ‘churn’, the number of students wishing to change courses within six months of having begun their studies has dramatically reduced, which saves both time, money and disruption in the students’ learning. In JLR, applicants for the several hundred apprenticeships on offer each year, complete the profile to identify which of the 24 different apprenticeships is the best one for each candidate. A similar saving is made because the apprentices are far less likely to seek to change programmes after they have begun. In short, ‘square pegs were being fitted into square holes’!
Keen to explore the profile for myself, I invited my 15-year-old grandson to try it. He is typical of his generation, seeming more interested in online gaming that anything else! He had no real career plans other than ‘probably’ looking at a BTEC linked to sport – he is a good rugby player! It took him less than twenty minutes to complete the profile online and we arranged a further session for me to feedback the results shortly afterwards.
The report, running to some 18 pages, comprises four interlinked sections. Firstly, it shows the level of interest in the following broad career themes:
• Artistic
• Scientific
• logical
• Managerial
• Administrative
• Persuasive
• Practical
• Nurturing
The second part is in effect a personality profile, indicating preferences between
Introverted Extraverted
Emotionally changeable Emotionally stable
Conventional Open to possibilities
Suspicious Agreeable/trusting
Spontaneous Conscientious
Intrinsically motivated Extrinsically motivated
Doubting Optimistic
Cautious Excitement
The third part of the report was the biggest surprise for me as it measured and graded levels of ability in the following critically important transferable skills:
• Mental toughness
• Achievement orientation
• Adaptability
• Emotional Competence
The final element of the feedback is to create an individual profile which is then compared with ‘ideal’ profiles for a range of specific career paths. The student is presented with a primary interest set of career paths plus a secondary interest set of career paths, each with a percentage match to the respective choices. Additionally, each choice on the report has link to a database of information about the specific role listing:
• Type of tasks associated with the role
• Technology skills required
• Knowledge base
• Soft skills required
• General ability level
• Work activities
• Work context
The third career on my grandson’s profile was lawyer – a 68% match. I drew his attention to it asked him how he felt about law as a career. His facial expression could be interpreted as hm telling me that I had lost the plot completely! However, I persisted and asked him to consider what a lawyer did at work. We looked criminal law, commercial law, property law among others, and eventually he indicated that he wished to comment. His question was simple: “are you telling me that I could get paid a lot of money for having arguments with people?” When I replied in the affirmative, he added, “I’m in!” Our subsequent discussion covered the options given that, at that time he didn’t want to go to a ‘conventional’ university, which focussed our attention on a degree apprenticeship enabled through a local firm of solicitors. Subsequently, he has reviewed that choice and is more actively considering a conventional three-year university degree course in law. I should add that my daughter is delighted in the changes in her son’s outlook on his future!
I plan to bring the Career-Fit Profile to a much wider market looking to help the parents of young adults get the absolute best guidance as to where their children should look to find their ideal career options.
My offer is to make available access to the online assessment plus a comprehensive online feedback session for a one-off payment of £75. Feedback is delivered via Zoom to the student plus one or both parents or a suitable adult, approved by a parent.
For your information I would add that I have a Masters’ degree in Education from Brunel University, have been qualified to use a full range of psychometrics for over twenty years and hold a current Enhanced DBS certificate.
I believe very strongly that the definition of career, used in the title of this article can be changed entirely by the use of the Career-Fit Profile, by giving both control and direction to a young adult’s career aspirations.
Paul Brennan MA FLPI Chartered FCIPD
Adastra Training
[email protected]
07703-261812
