Measuring Interests, Weighing Career Options

By Shawn Bakker

What do you like to do? That is the question that interest inventories are designed to help people answer. It is a simple question, but one that has many answers for each person. Most of us like to do a lot of different things, and bringing that information together in a way that helps us make career decisions is difficult without a form of structure or process. This is one of the greatest advantages of interest inventories – they take what someone knows about themselves, and articulates it in an organized, coherent manner.

Given what an interest inventory does, what is the value to the client? With the individuals that I have worked with, interest inventories can provide the following to a client:

• knowing where to start looking for rewarding careers
• knowing where not to look for rewarding careers
• a systematic way to plan and conduct a career search

To maximize the value of interest inventories, clients should be made aware of a number of key points. First, an interest inventory will not list their perfect career or provide a short-cut to the perfect job; they can only help you identify where to look. Second, an interest inventory does not take any responsibility or work away from the client. Instead it will help direct their energy. Third, they open more options for people rather than limit them. Fourth, the more work the client puts into examining their results and researching career options they more the will get out of it.