As career guidance counselors, we are often approached to support individuals in completing a career assessment or a skills assessment. Are they the same thing? What is the process involved? How can they help you make informed career decisions?
Distinguishing a career assessment from a skills assessment
A career assessment is a process that helps you analyze your professional background, identify your skills and aspirations, and better define your career direction.
What is it for?
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Take stock of your experiences and skills
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Identify your strengths and areas for improvement
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Clarify your career goals
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Prepare for a career change, professional transition, or reaffirm your decision to stay in your current role
As for the skills assessment, in Quebec, we typically refer to it as a skills evaluation or professional profile analysis. This process is often offered by specialized centers or HR consulting firms.
The career assessment is a three-step process that explores different timeframes: the past, the present, and the future.
The Past: Learning from My Experiences
What can I learn from my experiences so far?
Like any professional, there are roles, projects, types of clients, managers, or organizations that you’ve enjoyed—and others you haven’t. You’ve accomplished great things that you’re proud of. At the same time, you’ve faced challenging or difficult situations.
This entire journey is full of valuable insights, and bringing all that information together in a career assessment helps you draw connections between your past roles. These patterns serve as guiding threads, reflecting your past learnings and helping steer you toward your next professional path.
Examples of insights:
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I prefer short-cycle projects with tangible outcomes.
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Dealing with difficult clients has become draining, even though it was a motivating factor early in my career.
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Working on analytical tasks with limited interaction energizes me.
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Training and coaching others is something I find deeply fulfilling.
The Present: Where Am I Today?
Once you have highlighted your insights, it’s interesting to sort out the skills and interests you want to find in your next role. In fact, here’s an interesting point: when conducting an assessment, people often discover a strong correlation between proficiency in a skill and the level of interest. For consistency’s sake, we are generally more effective in what genuinely interests us. Conversely, what does it mean if there is a discrepancy between the two?
Low Level of Interest
In general, if your level of interest is low, regardless of the level of perceived ability, it is probably a skill you prefer to avoid or limit the use of. However, if your interest is low but your perceived ability is high, this skill might be leveraged in the short or medium term to help you progress toward your long-term goal.
Example: You are a student and you use your strong customer service skills in your part-time job. The job fits around your studies, which will eventually lead you to your professional goal (where your level of interest will be high). Therefore, you are willing to temporarily take on this job despite your low interest in customer service-related skills.
High Level of Interest
If your level of interest is high but you would like to further develop or enhance your perceived ability level (note that the goal isn’t to be perfect!), here are some examples of ways to achieve that:
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Theoretical: Training, reading, attending conferences.
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Practical: Observation, mentorship, taking on new responsibilities.
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Life experiences: Volunteering, personal roles (such as being a parent or friend), life experiences (travel, immigration).
Thus, there are several ways to increase your level of ability. But what is your learning style? What options are available to you? What is your preference? Conducting an assessment helps pinpoint where you might best invest your energy to develop key skills.
The Future: Explore the Possibilities!
After identifying the skills and interests you want to prioritize, it’s time to explore the job market. A career guidance counselor can help you target specific positions and develop an action plan. Keep in mind that a short-term training or a temporary role could help you develop or strengthen certain skills that will bring you closer to your career goal.
To go further:
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Use synonyms and action verbs in the languages you can work in (French and English) to broaden your job search.
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Schedule informational interviews to better understand the realities of certain professions.
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Tailor your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile by highlighting your transferable skills.
In conclusion, through a career assessment, you may realize that you have far more options than you initially thought. Taking the time to properly evaluate and discover them becomes all the more worthwhile. After that, all that’s left is to seize the best opportunities for you!
Written by Fanny Smolsky, Organizational Career Counselor, and Sandra Aziz, Career Counselor, at BrissonLegris & Associates.
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