According to the City and Guilds Happiness index almost five million Brits suffer from ergophobia – a fear of work; that fact alone will not surprise many. However, the fact that some of the Britain’s leading bankers and lawyers are among them may come as a surprise.
There are some very important factors that make people happy in their career. They are:
- Interests
If you can find a career in which you have an interest or passion, then you are far more likely to succeed and enjoy it.
- Aptitudes
Your aptitudes are your strong points. To utilise them effectively and harness them to further your career you need to be aware of your relative strengths and weaknesses.
- Personality
What is the right environment for you to work in? What is the right kind of role for you? What factors will press the buttons to motivate you in the morning and make you bounce out of bed and love your work.
- Values
Not everyone has the same sets of values; some people believe in a commitment to society, whilst others are simply motivated to earn money. Others will have a set of beliefs which would prevent them working in certain industries.
Career Analysts measure these factors using psychometric questionnaires. They are all online and can be completed at home in your own time. They are however in some depth requiring around 5 hours to complete. This may seem a long time, but we need to go into this much depth to dig quite deeply into you, so that we can then match you up with the best career for you.
Once completed, the psychometrics are followed by a one-on-one consultation with one of our Occupational Psychologists. By that time, he or she will have seen the results of the questionnaires in the form of graphs.
The personality graph is a bipolar graph. One aspect, for instance tension, would be demonstrated at one end of the spectrum as relaxed, placid and patient whereas tense, high energy, impatient and driven would be at the opposite extreme. We measure 16 different personality traits each with opposites – where would you fall in each one?
The values graph measures ones’ preferences for Rational, Material, Aesthetic, Social, Influence and Beliefs as motivating forces.
The aptitude tests measure verbal reasoning, numerical, perceptual, spatial and mechanical, logic and attention to detail. It is not the level of success in this test which is important but which of them you are relatively strong at.
The interest inventory measures your preferences for six major categories of career and each of these are further subdivided into five more specific groups.
In the afternoon consultation we will make a series of suggestions for careers that we believe are suitable and practical for you and talk them through with you one by one. As we go through, we will eliminate those that do not appeal until we are left with a very small number of suitable and practical career options that you can investigate further and make a decision.
The aim of the programme is to arm you with sufficient knowledge to confidently make that decision now and your personal report will remain a point of reference for you to refer back to in years to come.