Integrating Assessments into the Career Decision-Making Conversation

Career assessments play a key role in helping individuals inform their career decisions, whether through clarifying interests, values, and skills, identifying barriers to decision making, or in expanding one's options. We have found that many career counseling clients, often within minutes of initially engaging with a career practitioner, make a statement to the effect of, "I want to take that test that will tell me what I should be." In the sections that follow, we present an argument that career assessments should be part of the overall process of career counseling, not a standalone activity. We present a model of incorporating career assessments into the overall career counseling process, and demonstrate that model through use of a case study. In addition, we discuss implications for career service practitioners - but first, we will begin with a review of the purpose/utility of career assessments.